We close the spotlight on the films of Lucrecia Martel with two portraits of the director by a writer and a film-maker who have experienced the process of the making of her last film, Zama, at first hand.
In 1956 the Argentinian writer Antonio Di Benedetto published the novel Zama, considered by the Latinamerican critics his master piece. In 2017 Lucrecia Martel premiered her fourth feature film, the adaptation of the novel by Di Benedetto. The writer Selva Almada accompanied the shooting of the film and published by the end of last year El mono en el remolino, her notes on the film’s shooting.
We propose a double reading, from Zama to Zama, a trip that sails in the work by Di Benedetto and by Lucrecia Martel through the reading of the original book and the notes by Selva Almada.
16:30 Meeting-Conversation between writer Selva Almada and artist Violeta Gil at Tobacco Days bookshop.
18:00 Conference by the writer Selva Almada. Presentation of the book El mono en el remolino. Notes on the filming of Zama by Lucrecia Martel.
While Lucrecia Martel films, Selva Almada observes, asks questions and writes. And those notes – subtle and lyrical – are much more than an inspired and irreverent diary of the filming; they are a sensitive optical device that illuminates, fragments and allows us to look more deeply into the literary myth of Zama, through the pages and pictures, from the film to the book.
Selva Almada (Argentina, 1973). Regarded as one of the most powerful and promising voices of contemporary Argentine literature and Latin American fiction, Selva Almada received excellent reviews for her first novel, El viento que arrasa (The scorching wind), which was selected as best book of the year when it was published. Almada has been a finalist for the Rodolfo Walsh Prize with her non-fiction work Chicas muertas (Dead girls) (2014) and a finalist for the Tigre Juan Prize with her novel, Ladrilleros (Brick makers) (2013). Her work has been translated into French, English, Italian, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Swedish and Turkish. She co-directs the Carne Argentina reading cycle and coordinates writing workshops in Buenos Aires and in the interior of the country.
WORKS:
El mono en el remolino. Notes of the filming of Zama by Lucrecia Martel, 2017.
El desapego es una manera de querernos. Stories, 2015.
Chicas muertas. Non-fiction, 2014.
Ladrilleros. Novel, 2013.
El viento arrasa. Novel, 2012.
Una chica de provincia. Stories, 2007.
Niños. Stories, 2005.
Mal de muñecas. Poems, 2003.
19:00, Años luz, Manuel Abramovich, Argentina-Brazil-Spain, 2017, 75 minutes
Manuel Abramovich is a director whose work we follow closely. This year, the San Sebastian Festival screened his feature film Soldado in the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera section. Following this, in the extension of that section that we carried out in October, we showed another of his short films (La Reina, 2013) and the feature film Solar (2016).
When we learned this summer that Abramovich was making a film about the shooting of the film Zama by Lucrecia Martel, we were very eager to hear any further news about that project, which finally premiered at the Venice International Film Festival (Venice Classics Section). And now that we are dedicating a spotlight to the work of the Argentine director, it seemed essential to include this film/documentary portrait of Lucrecia Martel during the shooting of her latest film, Zama.
We close the spotlight on the films of Lucrecia Martel with two portraits of the director by a writer and a film-maker who have experienced the process of the making of her last film, Zama, at first hand.