Alfonso Quijada’s feature follows a young woman gifted with an extraordinary sense of smell. It looks great, but fails to satisfy
This drama from El Salvador has several commendable features, starting with a tender, sympathetic central performance from Laura Osma as Josefina, a sweet young woman who discovers she has an exceptional sense of smell. However, something doesn’t quite smell right about the way the film clumsily layers uplift and violence, served up with excessively stylised visuals and sound. It’s as if writer-director Alfonso Quijada, better known hitherto as an actor and producer, doesn’t know if he wants to make a telenovela-style melodrama or something more elevated and arty – in the tradition of Claudia Llosa’s The Milk of Sorrow or Lila Avilés’s films The Chambermaid and Tótem – with long takes and oblique storytelling strategies. In the end, it fails to satisfy either ambition.
Josefina...
This drama from El Salvador has several commendable features, starting with a tender, sympathetic central performance from Laura Osma as Josefina, a sweet young woman who discovers she has an exceptional sense of smell. However, something doesn’t quite smell right about the way the film clumsily layers uplift and violence, served up with excessively stylised visuals and sound. It’s as if writer-director Alfonso Quijada, better known hitherto as an actor and producer, doesn’t know if he wants to make a telenovela-style melodrama or something more elevated and arty – in the tradition of Claudia Llosa’s The Milk of Sorrow or Lila Avilés’s films The Chambermaid and Tótem – with long takes and oblique storytelling strategies. In the end, it fails to satisfy either ambition.
Josefina...
- 3/20/2023
- by Leslie Felperin
- The Guardian - Film News
Creative Team Talk Sky’s ‘Blocco 181,’ Which Mixes Multi-ethnic Milanese Crime and Three-Way Romance
Gangland warfare and a Romeo and Juliet romance with a twist are the main elements of Sky Studios’ first Italian in-house production ‘Blocco 181,’ which is set against the backdrop of a gritty multi-ethnic Milan that has never appeared on screen before.
The eight-episode show – which launches this week on Sky in the U.K. after making a splash in Italy – is lead-directed by London-based Italian director Giuseppe Capotondi, best known for art-heist thriller “The Burnt Orange Heresy” starring Mick Jagger as a shady art collector.
“It’s a dark fable combining crime, romance, sex, and coming-of-age elements,” said Capotondi who besides directing the series, also co-penned the “Blocco 181” screenplay. Capotondi added that, while rooted in reality, the show’s tone “is closer to a graphic novel than to the type of hyperrealistic series [like Gomorrah] that you can expect from Italy.”
Set on a rundown Milan housing estate known as Blocco 181,...
The eight-episode show – which launches this week on Sky in the U.K. after making a splash in Italy – is lead-directed by London-based Italian director Giuseppe Capotondi, best known for art-heist thriller “The Burnt Orange Heresy” starring Mick Jagger as a shady art collector.
“It’s a dark fable combining crime, romance, sex, and coming-of-age elements,” said Capotondi who besides directing the series, also co-penned the “Blocco 181” screenplay. Capotondi added that, while rooted in reality, the show’s tone “is closer to a graphic novel than to the type of hyperrealistic series [like Gomorrah] that you can expect from Italy.”
Set on a rundown Milan housing estate known as Blocco 181,...
- 6/24/2022
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Blocco 181 launches today, and to mark the release of this exciting, gritty series that delves deep into the criminal underbelly of Milan, we had the pleasure of speaking to some of the talent involved. Below you can find two videos where we chat to the rap giant Salmo, who serves as a producer on this series, and with the two leading stars, Lara Osma and Alessandro Piavani. We discuss the themes of the show, the importance of multiculturalism, and with Salmo, he speaks about the difference in producing music, and producing TV.
Salmo
Laura Osma & Alessandro Piavani
Synopsis
Set against the backdrop of multicultural Milan with a soundtrack of rap and reggaeton, Blocco 181 tells the story of love and crime. On the outskirts of Milan sits a commanding apartment complex in the fictional block 181, which contains residents Bea (Laura Osmo), Mahdi (Andrea Dodero) and Ludo (Alessandro Piavani).
Blocco 181...
Salmo
Laura Osma & Alessandro Piavani
Synopsis
Set against the backdrop of multicultural Milan with a soundtrack of rap and reggaeton, Blocco 181 tells the story of love and crime. On the outskirts of Milan sits a commanding apartment complex in the fictional block 181, which contains residents Bea (Laura Osmo), Mahdi (Andrea Dodero) and Ludo (Alessandro Piavani).
Blocco 181...
- 6/22/2022
- by Stefan Pape
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Mubi is showing Lina Rodriguez's Señoritas (2013) from December 4 – January 2, 2019 and This Time Tomorrow (2016) from December 5 – January 3, 2019 as part of the series Rites of Passage: Spotlight on Lina Rodríguez.Perhaps the most striking aspect of Lina Rodriguez’s cinema is that almost nothing of profound significance or vital importance occurs directly onscreen. The Colombia-born, Canada-based filmmaker’s two feature films, Señoritas (2013) and This Time Tomorrow (2016), are both set in Bogotá and observe through a series of vignettes the lives of their young female protagonists over an unidentified, but seemingly short period of time. Señoritas’ Alejandra (María Serrano) and This Time Tomorrow’s Adelaida (Laura Osma) live in their family homes as only children, poised on the tricky cusp of becoming independent and desiring adults, while remaining under the vigilant care of their parents. Alejandra lives with her kindly, traditional, and overly-attentive mother, while Adelaida lives with her warm but wan...
- 12/5/2018
- MUBI
The sophomore feature by Colombian/Canadian filmmaker Lina Rodriguez (Senoritas) opens with a view of a majestic tree and closes with one of huge clouds floating across the sky. Each shot stretches on for minutes and seems to go on forever. These reminders of the permanence of nature serve as a marked contrast to the concerns of the characters depicted in This Time Tomorrow, which in the long run are fleeting at best.
The film, receiving its U.S. theatrical premiere at NYC’s Metrograph, depicts the lives of a middle-class Bogota family consisting of 17-year-old Adelaida (Laura Osma) and her parents...
The film, receiving its U.S. theatrical premiere at NYC’s Metrograph, depicts the lives of a middle-class Bogota family consisting of 17-year-old Adelaida (Laura Osma) and her parents...
- 8/3/2017
- by Frank Scheck
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Lina Rodriguez’s This Time Tomorrow delivers its thesis through three clear demarcations in time — or, rather, extended shots, beginning on a sunlit tree, coming into the middle with a lone coffee pot, and ending with clouds drifting through the sky. One could say Rodriguez is evoking Ozu’s similar shots that give a sense of the life that pulses through empty rooms and the spaces between, clearly separating the almost indifferent world from the characters who inhabit it.
Though we come to focus on a Colombian family living a comfortable middle-class existence in Bogota: mother Lena (Maruia Shelton), father Franciso (Francisco Zaldua) and their 17-year-old daughter, Adelaida (Laura Osma). Working as an event planner, Lena seems to ultimately run the house, being introduced as an off-screen voice that pesters her daughter about not performing her chores while she lays her head on her father’s chest, sleepily watching television.
Though we come to focus on a Colombian family living a comfortable middle-class existence in Bogota: mother Lena (Maruia Shelton), father Franciso (Francisco Zaldua) and their 17-year-old daughter, Adelaida (Laura Osma). Working as an event planner, Lena seems to ultimately run the house, being introduced as an off-screen voice that pesters her daughter about not performing her chores while she lays her head on her father’s chest, sleepily watching television.
- 8/8/2016
- by Ethan Vestby
- The Film Stage
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