Ventana Sur’s coveted Paradiso Wip Award, made up of a $10,000 cash prize, went to Brazil’s “The Cuban Doctor.” Its director, Bernard Lessa, reflected on the significance of the award: “It’s a very important initiative and a partner in the cause of Brazilian cinema,” he said, as he expressed his joy at receiving the accolade.
Lessa’s story turns on Akin, a Cuban doctor working in Brazil during former President Jair Bolsonaro’s controversial tenure, who faces political headwinds while he’s simply trying to do his job with the respect and kindness his patients deserve.
“In January of 2019, when Bolsonaro started his presidency I was filming ‘The Night’s Substance,’ my last film. It was made with a very low budget and the sensation left after we ended the production was that we were doing what we were supposed to do, as well as we were not...
Lessa’s story turns on Akin, a Cuban doctor working in Brazil during former President Jair Bolsonaro’s controversial tenure, who faces political headwinds while he’s simply trying to do his job with the respect and kindness his patients deserve.
“In January of 2019, when Bolsonaro started his presidency I was filming ‘The Night’s Substance,’ my last film. It was made with a very low budget and the sensation left after we ended the production was that we were doing what we were supposed to do, as well as we were not...
- 12/2/2023
- by Anna Marie de la Fuente and Callum McLennan
- Variety Film + TV
There is a moment in Bernard Lessa’s “The Cuban Doctor” where Akin, the doctor, convinces a wary indigenous mother that surgery is needed to restore sight in her daughter’s left eye. He shows kindness, respect and patience, waiting days before she returns to give the go ahead. His approach is in stark contrast to a political climate swelling around him in Bolsonaro’s Brazil in 2018.
“The research we conducted while developing the script revealed that the Cuban way of practicing medicine is much more human and less bureaucratic than what we were used to in Brazil,” Lessa told Variety, adding: “Bolsonaro became the spokesperson for the angry Brazilian medical class, which, despite not being willing to work in the places where the Cubans came to work, felt entitled to claim that market share….For us, opposing Bolsonaro’s arrival to Akin’s interrupted mission is a way of...
“The research we conducted while developing the script revealed that the Cuban way of practicing medicine is much more human and less bureaucratic than what we were used to in Brazil,” Lessa told Variety, adding: “Bolsonaro became the spokesperson for the angry Brazilian medical class, which, despite not being willing to work in the places where the Cubans came to work, felt entitled to claim that market share….For us, opposing Bolsonaro’s arrival to Akin’s interrupted mission is a way of...
- 11/30/2023
- by Callum McLennan
- Variety Film + TV
Backed by the Cannes Film Market and Argentina’s Incaa film agency, the 15th Ventana Sur and its much anticipated works in progress sections, Primer Corte and Copia Final, unspool over Nov. 27-Dec. 1 in Buenos Aires.
This year’s crop of films, either in post-production or completed, make scant reference to the region’s brutal historical past, perhaps with the exception of “Pepe” by Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias, which begins with the capture of drug lord Pablo Escobar who sowed terror and chaos for years in Colombia, or José María Cabral’s “Tiguere,” set in a ‘90s Dominican Republic.
In contrast, they focus more on human interest stories as in the territorial dispute in “El Casero”; family clashes in “November” and “Una casa con dos perros” – also a reference to Argentina’s economic crisis – as well as issues of identity and intergenerational relationships.
In Mexican filmmaker Rigoberto Perezcano’s poignant black-and-white drama,...
This year’s crop of films, either in post-production or completed, make scant reference to the region’s brutal historical past, perhaps with the exception of “Pepe” by Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias, which begins with the capture of drug lord Pablo Escobar who sowed terror and chaos for years in Colombia, or José María Cabral’s “Tiguere,” set in a ‘90s Dominican Republic.
In contrast, they focus more on human interest stories as in the territorial dispute in “El Casero”; family clashes in “November” and “Una casa con dos perros” – also a reference to Argentina’s economic crisis – as well as issues of identity and intergenerational relationships.
In Mexican filmmaker Rigoberto Perezcano’s poignant black-and-white drama,...
- 11/14/2023
- by Anna Marie de la Fuente
- Variety Film + TV
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