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Event
VIDEOFILIA (And Other Viral Syndromes)
A Factory 25 release. Special thanks to Cinema Tropical and Marca Perú.
OFFICIAL PERUVIAN SUBMISSION, BEST FOREIGN LAUNGUAGE FILM ACADEMY AWARD
On the eve of the supposed Mayan apocalypse, a sleepy-eyed teenager named Luz (Muki Sabogal) encounters a 20something slacker named Junior (Terom) in a webcam chat room - but the world appears to go on the next morning, and a curious (and ultimately nervewracking) courtship ensues. In VIDEOFILIA, Peruvian filmmaker Juan Daniel F. Molero represents the world not just as it appears "IRL"; the story takes as much place in the capitol city of Lima as it does online, an alterna-verse drawn as a gobsmacking labyrinth of possible selves, where no choice is permanent and everything is thrown up for ingestion - "content" for the fishes. Junior fancies himself a burgeoning porn connoisseur, while Luz begins to experiment with drugs and the odd internet rendezvous to stave off the crushing boredom of a lonely, latchkey day-to-day life. (Molero litters this story with extra-textural signifiers, not the least of which is the Dragonball Z-themed restaurant where Luz works, typically serving much older men.)
VIDEOFILIA doesn't attempt a 1:1 ratio of tableaux to criticisms; instead, the film finds its aesthetic gripped in damnable present tense, the casual clarity of Moleros HD camera (for off-computer sequences) ultimately no more reliable than the glitched-out cyberworld occupied by Luz and Junior. It would be too easy to call this a work of magic realism, as VIDEOFILIA's loose-limbed depiction of day-to-day life evokes SLACKER as much as it does LOS OLVIDADOS. Molero indulges a 21st century beauty that's goofy, antic and yet harshly sobering - enamored of the possibilities of online, and yet wary of the void staring back at us whenever we sign on. A great darkness is held barely at arm's length, with datamoshed compression artifacts slowly encroaching on the film's otherwise spacious wide-panel frames, threatening to swallow Luz and Junior whole and emboss them in pixels; is this the end times, or just a weak connection?
Juan Daniel F. Molero is a filmmaker born and based in Lima. He has also lived in Buenos Aires and New York where he earned his first experiences in film journalism, video blogging, experimental film and film programming. In 2010 he directed the documentary feature REMINISCENCIAS. His work has screened at many renowned international festivals such as New Horizons, BAFICI, FIDMarseille, Valdivia, Lima Independiente and La Habana, and venues such as The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Museum of Lima and La Casa Encendida in Madrid. His fiction debut film VIDEOFILIA (and Other Viral Syndromes), became the first Peruvian production to ever win the Tiger Award at the Rotterdam Film Festival, and received the Hubert Bals Fund for Post-Production.
"Compared to other thrillers that treat webcams as a structural gimmick or visualize social media in ways that look corny even by the time credits roll, Videophilia casts a singular spell." - John DeFore, The Hollywood Reporter
AWARDS:
Post-production Grant from Hubert Bals Fund 2014
Tiger Award for Best Film of International Feature Competition at IFFR 2015
Best Film of International Competition at Lima Independiente Film Festival 2015
University of Lima Jury Award at Lima Independiente Film Festival 2015
Critics' Award at Atlántida Film Festival 2015
Distribution National Grant from Peruvian National FIlm Board - DAFO 2015
Grand Prix of International Competition at Split FIlm Festival 2015
Special Mention, International Competition, Ayacucho Film Festival 2015
Nominated for Best First Film at the Cinema Tropical Awards 2016
Peruvian Entry for the Foreign Language nomination at the Academy Awards 2017
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LocationSPECTACLE THEATER (View)
124 South 3rd Street
Brooklyn, NY 11249
United States
Categories
| Kid Friendly: No |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: No |
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