Feature film
The Almost True Story of Pepita the Gunslinger
La historia casi verdadera de Pepita la Pistolera
Beatriz Flores Silva · 1993
Synopsis
In Montevideo, in 1988, a middle-aged woman robs credit houses without violence to support her daughter, while her husband is confined in a psychiatric hospital. The employees she threatens think they see a revolver; it is only the handle of a broken umbrella, which she keeps in her bag. The press nicknames her Pepita la Pistolera, her robberies become the news story of the winter, and the police struggle to pick up her trail.
Context
The film draws on the investigation by the journalist María Urruzola; the screenplay is by the director, Janos Kovasci and Ariel Caldarelli, and Margarita Musto plays the lead. Produced by Esteban Schroeder with one hundred thousand dollars, it was shot on video to cut costs, which hampered its theatrical release, on 29 November 1993. Well received by the public, it set a standard for the country's audiovisual production and contributed to public aid for cinema, from which the National Audiovisual Institute would arise.
Who it is for
A fiction film in Spanish, a little over an hour long, shot on video, between comedy and social drama.
Prizes and reception
Grand prize Paoa TV at Viña del Mar in 1993, then awarded prizes in Guadalajara, Chicago, Rosario and Montevideo; the Cinémathèque regards it as the best film of its director.
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