El Premio

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Movie
Original title El Premio
Country of production Mexico , France , Poland , Germany
original language Spanish
Publishing year 2011
length 115 minutes
Rod
Director Paula Markovitch
script Paula Markovitch
production Izrael Moreno
music Sergio Gurrola
camera Wojciech Staron
cut Lorena Moriconi
occupation

El Premio ( German  “Der Preis” ) is the feature film debut of the Mexican director and screenwriter Paula Markovitch from 2011. The film drama is set in Argentina during the time of the military dictatorship and shows how far it spread to the most remote places. It tells the story of a mother, played by Laura Agorreca , who moves to a coastal village with her daughter, played by Paula Galinelli Hertzog , in order to escape the regime, but he also overtakes them there. For Paula Markovitch, who had worked successfully as a screenwriter, it was the first feature film after two short films. El Premio premiered in the competition at the 61st Berlinale in February 2011. Wojciech Staron and Barbara Enriquez received the Silver Bear for their outstanding artistic achievement .

action

El Premio takes place during the Argentine military dictatorship in 1979. Lucia and her seven-year-old daughter Cecilia flee to a small coastal town after her husband was taken to the torture chamber of the regime under General Jorge Rafael Videla . The two of them live in a barren house on the beach that serves as a warehouse for beach chairs and umbrellas, which it rains in and which is knocked over by storms. Lucia tells her daughter about the horrors of the regime, but withholds from her how things really are with her father. When Cecilia is allowed to go to school, the situation becomes more complicated. She has to pretend to be in front of the other children so as not to reveal her true identity, but rather to present her lies credibly. She comes into contact with the system and carries it home from school with prayers and songs, which puts more and more strain on her relationship with her mother. The danger they both face becomes clear when Lucia and her daughter bury forbidden books in a crumbling house on the beach. But a storm soon washes the books out again. Cecilia especially befriends a girl at school with whom she runs home and with whom she often plays on the beach. However, when she helps a boy from her class with a math test and the teacher Rosita has the entire class march in the schoolyard in the rain to find and punish the helper, Cecilia is betrayed by her friend. Lucia does not want to let her daughter go back to school after this incident, but Cecilia does not let herself be stopped from going to school. Because she can read and write best, Rosita and the other teachers decide that on Flag Day she should recite a poem on the Argentine flag . One day, when Sergeant Estevez visits school, the students are asked to write an essay in praise of the military, for which a prize was offered. Cecilia feels safe while writing and represents the positions she got to know from her mother, that the military is evil and that kidnapping people. She is not aware that she is putting herself and especially her mother in danger. When Lucia finds out about this essay, she is already preparing to flee before she and Cecilia go to their teacher Rosita. This allows Cecilia to rewrite the essay. This new version is then rated as the best entry by the military, so Cecilia is invited to the awards ceremony, which exacerbates the conflict with her mother. She doesn't want to let her daughter go there while she defiantly insists. This leads to verbal and physical arguments. Ultimately, Lucia tells her daughter that her father may already have been killed by the military, which changes Cecilia's attitude towards the award ceremony. She appears there, but looks listless and depressed. Back home, she apologizes to her mother, but at first she cannot forgive her daughter. The film ends with Lucia's husband and Cecilia's father reappearing one day and the three of them hugging on the beach.

background

Paula Markovitch herself comes from Argentina and experienced the military dictatorship herself as an eight-year-old child. In the film she tells the story of her parents, her father was imprisoned and tortured. With the script she could not secure the support of the Argentine Film Institute, so that the years to acquiring production by the Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía and supports the Polish Film Institute, as well as Fares Ladjimi , Gosia Staron , Wojciech Staron , Malgorzata Staron and Nicole Gerhards coproduced has been. The lack of support from Argentine film funding was not based on the topic, but, according to Markovitch, on the high bureaucratic hurdles. El Premio was filmed in locations in Argentina that Paula Markovitch knew from her own childhood. Many of the objects used in the film came from residents of the village, who brought old objects to the set before filming began and told stories about them.

Markovitch tells the Argentine military dictatorship and its effects on a small scale without directly capturing the cruelty of the regime in pictures. Instead of torture scenes, the threatened little world of a mother and her daughter is portrayed. The story is told from the point of view of the little girl Cecilia, the viewer does not learn more than she knows and understands. Understanding begins with the viewer primarily through the feelings carried by the film.

criticism

The reviews for El Premio varied. Elmar Krekeler, who reviewed the film for the Berliner Morgenpost , found that the film lacked secrets after a good start and that it dragged on. In addition, Markovitch resorted to a small supply of symbols. In contrast to this, Hannah Pilarczyk, who had seen El Premio for Spiegel Online , did perceive Markovitch's production that was perhaps too long for some viewers, but found the development of the presence of the military dictatorship in the coastal town as outstanding. She particularly highlights the acting performance of the child actors in this film. Carolin Ströbele also took up the latter in her review for Die Zeit . She wrote about the leading actress Paula Galinelli Hertzog that she played the main role of Ceci “with an intensity that almost scares you. In a second she embodies the carefree girl who, with her red hair and freckles, is reminiscent of Pippi Longstocking. The next moment the horror makes the child age years. ”Ströbele considered the film to be one of the favorites for the Golden Bear as best film.

Awards

At the 61st Berlinale in February 2011, the cameraman Wojciech Staroń and the production designer Barbara Enriquez received the Silver Bear for their outstanding artistic achievement . In 2013 El Premio was awarded the Premio Ariel for best film .

literature

  • Berlin International Film Festival: Berlinale 10-20 FEB 11 . Berlin 2011. ISSN  0724-7117

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b Carolin Ströbele: "Berlinale contribution" El Premio "- Death and the Maiden" on zeit.de, accessed on February 12, 2011.
  2. a b Teresa Corceiro: "Morbid world - Paula Markovitchs film debut" El Premio "" on 3sat.de, accessed on February 19 2011th
  3. Elmar Krekeler: "Much betrayal and no secret", accessed on morgenpost.de on February 12, 2011
  4. Berlinale blog on spiegel.de, accessed on February 12, 2011