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| The Heiresses |
Marcelo Martinessi's The Heiresses (Las Herederas) - which opens in UK cinemas today - will be the opening night film for the section. He and some of his cast will be in the Spanish town with the film that tells the story of a woman (Ana Brun, who won a Silver Bear in Berlin for her performance), who finds herself blossoming after her long-time lover is incarcerated (read what he told us about the film here.
Other films in the line-up include Katz's Sueño Florianópolis, which recently won the FIPRESCI prize in Karlovy Vary, Reygadas' In Our Time, which will receive its world premiere in competition in Venice, and Seigner's magic realism-inflected Los Silencios.
Twelve films produced, directed or set in Latin America will compete for the Horizontes Award. Las herederas (Marcelo Martinessi), opening film of the section, Familia sumergida (Immersed Family, María Alché), La noche de 12 años (A Twelve-Year-Night, Álvaro Brechner), Figuras (Figures, Eugenio Canevari), Cómprame un revólver (Buy Me a Gun, Julio Hernández Cordón), Enigma (Ignacio Juricic Merillán), Sueño Florianópolis (Ana Katz), Ferrugem / Rust (Aly Muritiba), Nuestro tiempo (Our Time, Carlos Reygadas), Marilyn (Martín Rodríguez Redondo), Los silencios (Beatriz Seigner) and El motoarrebatador (The Snatch Thief, Agustín Toscano) make up the Horizontes Latinos selection at the 66th edition of the San Sebastian Festival.
Among the newer names in the line-up are actress-turned-director María Alché, who brings her debut feature The Immersed Family (Familia sumergida), which was one of San Sebastian's Films in Progress last year and Ignacio Juricic, whose feature debut Enigma sees a woman go on TV in a bid to find out why her lesbian daughter was beaten to death eight years previously. Also bringing his debut, is Martin Rodriguez Redondo, whose tale of a teenager's self-discovery, Marilyn, is based on a true story. Second films will be presented by actor-turned-director Agustin Toscano, also brings The Snatch Thief (El Motoarrebatador) and Eugenio Caevari, whose Figures (Figuras) considers the story of an Argentine immigrant to Spain with ALS.
Rounding out the line-up are Aly Mirtiba's Rust (Ferrugem), which won the Films in Progress Industry Award at least year's festival, Álvaro Brechner's third film, A 12-Year Night (La noche de 12 años) and Julio Hernández Cordón's Buy Me A Gun (Cómprame un revólver), which was presented at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes.
Immersed Family, Rust, The Heiresses, The Snatch Thief, Marilyn, Figures, Los silencios and Enigma are also contenders for the Youth Award. The festival will run from September 21 to 29.
The full line-up is below (descriptions courtesy of the festival):
Buy Me a Gun (Julio Hernández Cordón, Mexico) - Mexico, sometime in a near future... Women are disappearing and a girl called Huck wears a mask to hide her gender. She helps her dad, a tormented addict, to take care of an abandoned baseball camp where the narcos gather to play. The father tries to protect her as he can. With the help of her friends, a group of lost boys who have the power of camouflaging themselves in the windy desert, Huck has to fight to overcome her reality and to defeat the local capo.
Enigma (Ignacio Juricic Merillán, Chile) - Nancy receives an offer from a TV programme on unsolved mysteries to participate in the episode telling the story of her daughter, a young lesbian beaten to death, a crime for which no one has been found guilty eight years on. Nancy confronts her family and each one’s version of the events, as she decides whether or not to participate.
A Family Submerged (Maria Alché, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Norway) - It's summertime in an empty and heated Buenos Aires. Marcela's world is shaken as her sister passes away, and it becomes estranged and unfamiliar. While still grieving, she will have to deal with clearing out her sister's apartment. Willing to help out, Nacho, a young friend of her daughter's, bursts in. His presence gives way to shared road trips and adventures.
Figures (Eugenio Canevari, Spain, Argentina) - Stella, an Argentinian immigrant living in Spain, suffers from Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and needs constant attention. Paco, her long-time partner, helps her to move, eat, and communicate. Valeria, Stella's daughter, visits them sporadically and, anguished by the visible deterioration of her mother, finds a manner of escape by going out to parties. While they wait for an answer about an opportunity for subsidised housing, they attempt to cope with the situation through humor and love. A real family performing in a real story.
The Heiresses, (Marcelo Martinessi, Paraguay) - When Chiquita is sent to prison for debt, her introverted girlfriend Chela is left to her own devices. Chela offers rich women a taxi service in her old car. As she explores the outside world she also starts to focus on her own desires.
Marilyn (Martín Rodríguez Redondo, Argentina, Chile) - Marcos, a 17 year-old farmhand, discovers his sexuality in a hostile atmosphere. Nicknamed "Marilyn" by the other village teenagers, he becomes an object of desire and discrimination. Marcos feels increasingly more penned in.
Rust (Aly Muritiba, Brazil) - Tati is a 16-year-old girl looking forward to a weekend trip with her school friends. But trouble brews for her when a compromising tape of her and the son of one of her teachers is leaked online.
Los Silencios (Beatriz Seigner, Brazil, France, Colombia) - Nuria, Fabio and their mother Amparo arrive in a small island in the middle of Amazonia, at the border of Brazil, Colombia and Peru. They ran away from the Colombian armed conflict in which their father disappeared. One day, he reappears in their new house. The family is haunted by this strange secret and discovers the island is peopled by ghosts.
Our Time (Carlos Reygadas, Mexico , France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden) - A family lives in the Mexican countryside raising fighting bulls. Esther is in charge of running the ranch, while her husband Juan, a world-renowned poet, raises and selects the beasts. When Esther becomes infatuated with a horse trainer, named Phil, the couple struggles to stride through the emotional crisis.
The Snatch Thief (Agustín Toscano, Argentina, Uruguay, France) - In the Argentinian city of Tucumán, Miguel is making a living as a "motochorro", a thief who snatches people's belongings from his motorbike. When he steals the purse of Elena, an old woman, he ends up hurting her badly. After the brutal incident, Miguel is plagued by guilt and unable to forget about his victim. In an attempt to make things right, he conceals his true identity from the old woman and starts to take care of the injured and unsuspecting Elena. The closer he gets to her the more he becomes entangled in his own lies.
Sueño Florianópolis (Ana Katz, Argentina, Brazil, France) - Couple Pedro and Lucrecia travel to Brazil with their teenage children. They have recently decided to separate, but to spend the holidays together as planned all the same. Marco, the Brazilian renting their summer house to the family, and Larissa, his ex-girlfriend, befriend Pedro and Lucrecia. On the beaches, among the waves, karaoke and water excursions, overlapping romances emerge together with an attraction that will rub off on the children.
A 12-Year Night (Álvaro Brechner, Spain, Argentina, France, Uruguay) - September 1973. Uruguay is under the control of military dictatorship. The Tupamaros guerrilla movement has been crushed and out of action for a year. Its members imprisoned and tortured. One autumn night, three Tupamaros prisoners are taken from their prison cells in a secret military operation that will last for twelve years. From then on they will be hauled around different camps all over the country, subject to a macabre experiment; a new kind of torture aiming to break the limits of their mental resistance.
