Marcos Carnevale | Argentina | 2009 | 104' | Spanish spoken, English subtitles Buenos Aires, July 1994: Anita, a young woman with Down’s Syndrome, is working with her mother in their small office supplies shop. While her mother has gone to the bank, a car bomb explodes outside the nearby Jewish Centre. Anita, who stayed behind in the shop, goes outside and is met by a scene of chaos and devastation. She can’t see her mother anywhere. And her mother is everything to her; offering her a protected, loving world. The only world Anita knows.
Anita decides to go and search for her mother: the start of a heart-rending odyssey through the streets of Buenos Aires lasting many days. On the way, she meets very different people; some – for example, an alcoholic journalist and a Chinese couple – take care of her, even though she is hardly able to explain to them what has happened.
Director and writer Marcos Carnevale doesn’t seek to depict Anita as a helpless woman characterized only by her mental disability. Rather, he starkly reveals, through her eyes, the chaos and confusion that typifies life in the big city. However dramatic the situation, Carnevale ensures, using humour and hope, that Anita doesn’t get bogged down in heavy tragedy.
Friday 20 August, +/- 09.30 PM, Marie Heinekenplein
