Pygmalion Media is proud to present the release
on DVD of two of the most important Ecuadorian films of the last
decade. Both movies, directed by CAMILO LUZURIAGA
are a milestone in the new Latin American cinema
LA
TIGRA (THE TIGRESS) (1990)
Based
on the Short Story by José de la Cuadra
At the heart of the mythical Ecuadorian countryside
Montubio lives the indomitable and relentless Francisca Miranda,
better known as the "The Tigress" because of her sensual
beauty that she liberally uses in order to dominate her small country
property and above all those that surround it, including her lovers
and her two younger sisters.
A story of love, power, magic and revenge
that develops among fantasy and reality in a landscape of dreams,
the literary territory inhabited by magical realism, territory that
the director Camilo Luzuriaga manages to recreate triumphantly on
the screen. "The Tigress" relives the myth of the woman
as the only one who can exist in a tropical and male-dominated culture.
Best
Film, XXIX Cartagena International
Film Festival.
Best Photography
and Best Music, VII Bogotá
International Film Festival.
"May be the
best visual equivalent of literary magical realism ever filmed.
The film celebrates the myth of woman, the flip side of Latin machismo." Wendy Lidell, FILM FORUM, New York
"The cinematography is imaginative,
fluid and highly expressive…" Ted Mahar, The Oregonian, Portland
"Its wobbly ambiguity and elements of magical realism make this
film so unique... Luzuriaga brings a subtle critique of machismo
to the film..." Lisa Katsman, VILLAGE VOICE, New York
"This ravishingly homespun
film played by an all-Ecuadorian cast, tells the story of La Tigra,
a mythical female version of the Latin American macho" Christine Tweddle, THE ECONOMIST, London
Country:
Ecuador Language: Spanish
(English and French subtitles) Duration: 80 min.
aprox. Starring: Lissette
Cabrera, Rossana Iturralde, Verónica García,
Arístides Vargas and Virgilio Valero. Director: Camilo
Luzuriaga Encoding:Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only) Format: Color Rated: Not Rated DVD Features:
Theatrical Trailer
Photo Gallery
Cast and Crew
Spanish Audio
Optional New and Improved English,
French, and Spanish Subtitles
ENTRE
MARX Y UNA MUJER DESNUDA (BETWEEN MARX AND A NAKED WOMAN) (1996)
Based on the Novel
by Jorge Enrique Adoum
The center of the movie is "the author",
called as such because of his insistence to write a book about himself,
his antagonistic loves, his country and his militant left wing party
politics during the sixties in Ecuador.
The movie interchanges realist scenes with
scenes of sensual dreams and strange episodes portrayed by a diverse
group and at times absurd characters, and never left totally clear
if they are real, or if the author simply invented them. Until,
exceeded by his emotional and intense context, the same author must
admit, in a confidential dialogue with Karl Marx, that he is a little
confused and is incapable of diferentiating the truth from fiction.
At the end, surely he would not be the only one to feel this experience,
because for the director Camilo Luzuriaga the confusion and not
the certainty, was characteristic of those years, when Ecuadorian
youth believed that the Revolution was around the corner.
Best Art Direction,XVIII La Habana Film Festival.
Best Script and
Best Sound Track,Trieste
Film Festival.
Nominated
for Best Foreign Film by the Spanish Film Academy of Arts and Sciences,
1997.
"One of the fest's major surprises is
this startlingly inventive and sophisticated, beautifully done film
from tiny Ecuador... packed with wit, energy, passion, intelligence,
high style and memorable characters... the movie is wildly creative
and funny" Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune
"In a virtuoso manner, Luzuriaga plays
with different narrative levels, he sketches an imposing panorama
that has little in common with conventional narrative structures,
but is reminiscent of the magic realism of Latin American authors
like García Márquez." Frank Schnelle, Mannheim FN, Mannheim
"Attention! Chef-d'œuvre! The
director buries here some illusions loved by South American intellectuals
of the sixties. A joyful burial, with dream characters, roles at
the same time absurd and passionate" Denise Beuchat, Le Quotidien Jurassien, Zurich
Country:
Ecuador Language: Spanish
(English and French subtitles) Duration: 90 min.
aprox. Starring: Arístides
Vargas, Felipe Terán, Maia Koulieva, Carlos Valencia,
Gerson Guerra, Ximena Ferrín, Francisco Aguirre and
Jorge Mateus. Director:
Camilo Luzuriaga Encoding: Region
1 (U.S. and Canada only) Format: Color Rated:Not Rated DVD Features:
Theatrical Trailer
Photo Gallery
Cast and Crew
Spanish Audio
Optional New and Improved English,
French, and Spanish Subtitles
After twenty-five years of total separation
from her family, Virginia returns to Quito, her birthplace, to be
reunited with her widowed father and her fraternal twin sister,
Manuela, who lives in the old paternal home with her husband and
two sons.
Virginia visits her father, who is vegetating in a home for the
aged. The impossibility of making contact with him unleashes in
her the wild abandon typical of the long series of troubled love
affairs that have been a part of her life in New York.
Manuela finds herself suddenly overwhelmed
by the frenetic emotional life of her sister and becomes the confidante
of her flings. Manuela is no total innocent herself, since though
she tries to hide it from her prying sister, she is carrying on
a secret platonic affair with a man who writes her passionate erotic-existential
letters.
Manuela's marriage founders because of sexual
apathy and the constant suspicions Virginia kindles in Manuela regarding
her husband's fidelity. Lorenzo abandons the home. The twins' father
dies. At his funeral, Virginia rails against her dead father for
his unlovingness and the distance he imposed on her when he uprooted
her and sent her abroad at the age of eight.
Country:
Ecuador Language: Spanish
(English and French subtitles) Duration: 90 min.
aprox. Starring: Marilú
Vaca, Valentina Pacheco and Luis Vivanco. Director:
Camilo Luzuriaga Encoding: Region
1 (U.S. and Canada only) Format: Color Rated:Not Rated DVD Features:
Theatrical Trailer
Photo Gallery
Cast and Crew
Spanish Audio
Optional New and Improved English,
French, and Spanish Subtitles
