ZAMA
2017, 115’
Director: Lucrecia Martel
Countries: Argentina, Brazil, Spain, Dominican Republic, France, Netherlands, Mexico,
Switzerland, USA, Portugal, Lebanon
Distributor: The Match Factory
Language: o.v. Spanish with Italian subtitles
A South American official, Don Diego de Zama, is demoted to Paraguay by order of the Spanish Crown. For years he waits for the king to transfer him back to Argentina and be reunited with his wife Marta and children, but years pass and the letter never arrives. Zama makes the decision to go on the hunt for a dangerous bandit with a group of soldiers and sets out for distant lands. A transposition of Antonio di Benedetto’s 1956 novel of the same name, Zama is a reinterpretation of a classic Argentine novel to tell the story of colonialism in South America and reflect on the implications of its impact on the local populations. This ambitious film features the Argentine director’s poetic style and the atmosphere of stagnation that permeated the lives of the characters in Martel’s earlier films.
Produced by Pedro Almodóvar, screened at the 2017 Venice Film Festival, and nominated in 2018 for the Goya Award for Best Foreign Film in the Spanish language.
The film will be followed by a conversation between the director Lucrecia Martel and Paolo
Moretti.
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