Cinema
The Tigress
La Tigra
Camilo Luzuriaga · 1990
Synopsis
Since the murder of their parents, Francisca Miranda, the eldest, has run the family farm near Balzar and governs the lives of her sisters Juliana and Sara; she is called the Tigress. With Juliana she drinks and takes the lovers she chooses, among them Ternerote. But Masablanca, a Black healer, has told them that Sara's virginity was the only salvation for their sins: so they lock the youngest up every night, until the day a passing man, Clemente Suárez, falls in love with her and goes to the police.
Context
The story by José de la Cuadra on which it is based was missing from the eleven texts of Horno published in Guayaquil in 1932: it was added only in 1940, in the volume published in Buenos Aires. Produced by the Grupo Cine and shot on 35 mm in colour, the film casts Lissette Cabrera as Francisca, Rossana Iturralde as Juliana and Verónica García as Sara, with Arístides Vargas and Virgilio Valero. Critics have seen in it a turning point for Ecuadorian cinema, and the Festival des 3 Continents in Nantes screened it out of competition as early as 1990.
Who it is for
In Spanish, eighty minutes, subtitled in French at festivals. A rural drama poised between reality and sorcery.
Prizes and reception
About two hundred and fifty thousand admissions, a record for Ecuadorian cinema; best film and best first work at Cartagena in 1990.
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