Trailer ¨Una Semana Solos¨

UNA SEMANA SOLOS in VENICE

TRESMILMUNDOS CINE
MARTIN SCORSESE

present

UNA SEMANA SOLOS
a film by Celina Murga

Venice Days / Giornate degli autori
Screenings

Press and Industry
Sept. 3rd - 8.15 pm - Sala Volpi

Official Screening
Sept. 4th - 11.45 am - Sala Perla

Additional Screening
Sept. 5th -11.00 pm - Sala Pasinetti

Poster

Archivo de críticas - (español)

Página 12 - Horacio Bernades

La Nación - Diego Battle

Prometheus - Roger Alan Koza

Cinevivo

Variety review

In her second feature, director Celina Murga applies her sensitive, nonjudgmental eye to kids playing "Home Alone" in a gated suburban community in "A Week Alone." As in her fine 2003 debut, "Ana and the Others," Murga is at her best when pretty much nothing is happening but the rhythms and oddities of everyday life, and far less assured when plot-turns and incidents are imposed on a gentle master plan, co-written with producer Juan Villegas ("Saturday"). Pic reps what the world has come to vaguely expect from Argentine films, and will find willing buyers and fests in all major markets.

Confident her aud will catch up to what's going on, Murga drops in almost midsentence on her set of pre-teens and tweens, as they habitually break into the house of a neighbor who's off on summer vacation. Maria (Magdalena Capobianco) is oldest of group, with her mom away for the week on undisclosed business, leaving her to take care of a brood including younger sis Sofia (real-life sis Eleonora Capobianco), cousin Rodrigo (Ramiro Saludas), Facundo (Lucas Del Bo), little Quique (Federico Pena), along with neighbor kid Timmy (Mateo Braun).

At first almost unnoticed is family maid Esther (Natalia Gomez Alarcon), the only adult in sight and extremely tolerant of the kids' shenanigans. Tykes can access seemingly any vacant living space except the parents' room, which is locked, setting up the film's slightly strange world in which easily bored young folks with loads of time to kill function within a set of unspoken group rules yet break other rules with impunity.

Penetrating a few layers below the loose surface mood, the lives of Maria and Sofia are observed with the same casual familiarity Murga applied with her Ana character in "Ana and the Others."

"A Week Alone" runs into problems with the orchestrated entrance of Fernando (Gaston Luparo), a poor lad from the Entre Rios area invited by Esther, who's a relative. Only upon Fernando's arrival does the pic acknowledge that everyone here lives in a well-guarded, gated community, cut off from other nearby towns. Such a subtle touch is typical of Murga, and a welcome contrast to the same situation excessively staged in Rodrigo Pla's recent Mexican thriller, "The Zone."

But like a stage character that may as well be labeled "The Outsider," Fernando brings out many of the worst prejudices of these more privileged kids, while never made to feel entirely comfortable at home or at play. What had been a film that didn't press easy political and class-conscious buttons suddenly gets explicit in its dramatics; to their credit, however, once Murga and Villages deposit awkward Fernando amid the slicksters, they don't resort to tragic or hyperdramatic consequences.

Even a potentially powder keg situation near the end doesn't peak in histrionics, but rather a quiet acknowledgment (never spoken) that the kids crossed the line of acceptable behavior.

Perhaps Murga's best work is with her young cast, who look like they're allowed to simply be themselves. The pic's mood is dominated by young thesps naturally being in the moment, with the resulting feeling being that we as the audience are spying on them.

Lenser Marcelo Lavintman and production designer Julieta Wagner make huge contributions, filling the screen with the atmosphere and creature comforts of suburban affluence. Still, it remains an oddity that Murga appears to prefer a generally washed-out, nearly overexposed look to cinematography that also typified "Ana."

Variety - by Robert Koehler

Festivales / Festivals

Septiembre - September 2008
Venice Days (Venecia Film Festival)

Octubre - october 2008
Festival Internacional de Cine de Valdivia
Film Festival Ghent
Cero Latitud - Quito
Vienna International Film Festival
London Film Festival

Noviembre - November 2008
Thessaloniki International Film Festival
Fetival Internacional de Cine de Gijón
Festival des 3 Continents - Nantes

Fotos / pictures

Celina Murga - the director

Celina Murga was born in 1973 in Paraná, Entre Ríos. She studied at the Universidad del Cine, in Buenos Aires, and wrote and directed several short films as Una tarde felíz, Interior-Noche and Frío Afuera. Ana y los otros (2003), her first feature film, won prizes at Venice, Buenos Aires, Thessaloniki, Vienna, Anonimul (Rumania) and Punta del Este. It was elected as Best Latinoamerican Film of the year, by Fipresci International. Una semana solos (2008) is her second feature film. Celina Murga has been chosen by Martin Scorsese to spend a year of mentoring with him by the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative in 2008.

Perfil de Celina Murga - directora

Celina Murga nació en Paraná, Entre Ríos en 1973. Estudió en la Universidad del Cine, en Buenos Aires, y escribió y dirigió varios cortometrajes: Una tarde Feliz, Interior-Noche y Frío Afuera. Ana y los otros (2003), su ópera prima, obtuvo premios en Venecia, Buenos Aires, Salónica, Viena, Anonimul (Rumania) y Punta del Este. Fue elegida la Mejor Película Latinoamericana del Año, por Fipresci Internacional. Una semana solos (2008) es su segundo largometraje. En 2008, Celina Murga ha sido elegida por Martín Scorsese para un año como discípula junto a él, a través de la Iniciativa para las Artes y las Ciencias de Rolex.

Contacto / contact

Tresmilmundos Cine

Paraguay 4645 1º 6
1425, Buenos Aires
Argentina
+54 11 4775 1614
juanmaville@gmail.com

Foto / picture

Foto / picture

Ficha técnica / techincal info

Una semana solos / A Week Alone

Argentina, 2008

110 min. / 35mm / color

1:1:85, Dolby SRD

Director / Director: Celina Murga

Guión / Script: Celina Murga, Juan Villegas

Empresa de producción / Production Company: Tresmilmundos Cine

Productor / Producer: Juan Villegas

Producción ejecutiva / Executive Producers: Juan Villegas, Inés Gamarci

Dirección de fotografía / Cinematography: Marcelo Lavintman

Dirección de sonido / Sound Designer: Federico Billordo

Dirección de arte / Art Designer: Julieta Wagner

Vestuario / Costumes: Jimena Acevedo

Montaje / Edición: Eliane Katz

Música / Music: Inés Gamarci, Martín Salas y ……

Intérpretes / Cast

Magdalena Capobianco, Eleonora Capobianco, Ignacio Giménez, Gastón Luparo, Lucas del Bo, Ramiro Saludas, Federico Peña, Natalia Gómez Alarcón, Manuel Aparicio, Mateo Braun.

Con el apoyo de / with the support of

INCAA, Hubert Bals Fund, Universidad del Cine, Fondo Metropolitano de las Artes y las Ciencias de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Instituto Cultural de la Provincia de Buenos Aires.

Synopsis (english)

Teenagers and children adrift in the territory delimited by a closed neighborhood, a model scale citadel: houses with gardens, a school, a party hall, a pool. A round trip from leisure to tedium, with no fathers or mothers close, the orphaned-for-a-week kids circulate to create their own chaos regime in the commodity of an accepted prison: no one even tries to run away from there. In that everyday state of conformity a stranger joins them, the one from the outside who irrupts, but not even at that point does the traditional conflict come up, rather everything dissolves in an intermittent game of tenderness and cruelty. The idea is regain the density of every gesture with a frontal, crystal-clear and sharp eye. A choral portrait, played by a group of kids, with its maximum vertex in a musical outbreak, which concentrates an indefinite range of sentiments and senses. The innocent everyday things from childhood and the incipient ferocity that result from the enclosure make up this story that reflects a reality so far hardly told.

Sinópsis (español)

Adolescentes y niños a la deriva en el territorio delimitado de un country, una ciudadela modelo que supuestamente los contiene: casas con parque, escuela, salón de fiestas, pileta. Del ocio al tedio ida y vuelta, sin padres ni madres cerca, los niños huérfanos por una semana circulan para crear un régimen propio de descontrol en la comodidad de una prisión aceptada: nadie ni siquiera intenta huir de ahí. En ese estado cotidiano de conformidad se suma un extraño, el de afuera que irrumpe, pero ni siquiera en ese punto surge el conflicto tradicional, sino que todo se disuelve en un juego intermitente de crueldad y ternura. La idea es recuperar la densidad de cada gesto con una mirada frontal y seca. Un retrato coral, encarnado por un grupo de niños, con su vértice máximo en un brote musical, que concentra una gama amplia de sentidos y sensaciones. Esta es la crónica de esos días, entre la cotidianeidad inocente propia de la infancia y la ferocidad incipiente que surge del encierro.