DIR. Marcelo Martinessi
YEAR. 2018
COUNTRY. Paraguay
RUN-TIME. 95 MINS
RATING. 15
£6.00 (£4.50 conc.)
Doors 7.30PM
Film 8.00PM
Latin American Cinema Night presents the multi-award winning film from Paraguay: THE HEIRESSES.
Once proud members of Paraguay's upper crust, brittle spirit Chela (Ana Brun, Silver Bear Award-Best Actress, Berlin Film Festival) and her longtime partner/caregiver Chiquita (Margarita Irun) live a cloistered life in a cluttered home whose grandeur has long fallen into disrepair. Selling off their fortune piece by piece in preparation for Chiquita's upcoming prison stint, Chela receives an unexpected lifeline when gossipy neighbor Pituca (Maria Martins) asks the shy recluse to drive her to her daily bridge game. Soon, Chela finds herself a not-so-reluctant chauffer to a gaggle of aging gossips, but when she's introduced to earthy, sensual Angy (Ana Ivanova), Chela finds herself in the thaw of self-renewal as the sexually open Angy slowly draws her out of her shell, getting Chela in touch with her body—and a willingness to participate in life's messiness and unpredictability. The Heiresses (or Las Herederas) is a sly, subtle, and brave feature debut—framed by a compelling sociocultural commentary—from writer/director Marcelo Martinessi, winner of both Silver Bear-Alfred Bauer Prize and the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize at Berlin International Film Festival.
Spanish with subtitles in English
“It is in the unspoken where “The Heiresses” is its most powerful. Within this story of a woman joining the river of time again, you can glimpse an entire culture’s struggle to move out of the past and lurch into the future, into the unknown.”
“Martinessi shrewdly combines subtlety, melancholy, satirical observation and candour about sex.”