Official selection
Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema 2021
Director
Emilio Silva Torres
Writer
Emilio Silva Torres
Producer
Juan Alvarez Neme, Virginia Bogliolo
Cinematographer
Juan Alvarez Neme
Composer
Maximiliano Silveira
Editor
Juan Alvarez Neme
contact
FiGa Films
Join us after the screening on August 12 at 11:00pm EDT for a live Q&A with Director Emilio Silva Torres, Producer Virginia Bogliolo and Actor Alfonso Tort
The ’80s were the most fruitful years for direct-to-video oddities. Defying all cinematic conventions, their decay adding to their quirky charm, VHS tapes were cheap and allowed filmmakers of all backgrounds interests to produce abundantly. In Uruguay, ACT OF VIOLENCE IN A YOUNG JOURNALIST (1989), by Manuel Lamas, is the strangest of them all. “Action.. Romance… Mystery… Sex… Magic…” proclaims its trailer as we witness what seems to be an absurd supernatural drama, with “a raw, a rough, unusual narrative impulse”, featuring some cringy yet fascinating telenovela acting. Never seen outside of its country of origin, the film has been celebrated as a cult film (a? la THE ROOM) by local cinephiles and camp aficionados, while its origins have remained shrouded in mystery for decades... Until now!
The behind-the-scenes mystery thickens in Emilio Silva Torres’ feature debut STRAIGHT TO VHS as we tag along on a quest through creepy locations, with eccentric characters, to find the man behind one the oddest VHS films ever made. Navigating between Lynch’s INLAND EMPIRE (2006) and Sam Raimi’s EVIL DEAD (1981), Torres blurs the lines between reality and fiction, sometimes unwillingly – the subject is just too strange. This demented investigation takes him into an unfathomable spiral, both comical and terrifying... and we”re dragged into the rabbit hole along with him.
FANTASIA EXCLUSIVE: STRAIGHT TO VHS will be presented as a double bill with the extremely rare film ACT OF VIOLENCE IN A YOUNG JOURNALIST. – Celia Pouzet
Showings
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