The first Peruvian film to ever win the Tiger Award at the Rotterdam Film Festival, Videophilia (and Other Viral Syndromes) follows Luz, a teenage misfit from Lima who meets online Junior, a weird slacker who is obsessed with conspiracy theories, Mayan prophecies of the end of the world, and underground porn. They try to hook up in the real life but supernatural events start to unfold. Set in Lima, Juan Daniel F. Molero’s exhilarating debut fiction film is a playful mashup of internet cafes, slackers, not-so-innocent schoolgirls, amateur porn, Google Glass, acid trips, and guinea pigs as extras in an exorcism.
VIDEOFILIA (AND OTHER VIRAL SYNDROMES) / VIDEOFILIA (Y OTROS SÍNDROMES VIRALES
A film by Juan Daniel F. Molero
(Peru/U.S., 2015, 102 mins. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Now streaming on Vimeo
Watch the trailer:
VIDEOFILIA (And Other Viral Syndromes)
dir. Juan Daniel Molero, 2016
Peru, 103 mins.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
OFFICIAL PERUVIAN ENTRY, BEST FOREIGN LAUNGUAGE FILM ACADEMY AWARD 2017
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2 – 7:00PM *DIRECTOR Q&A!* (NYC Premiere!)
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3 – 5PM *DIRECTOR Q&A! (with Cinema Tropical’s Carlos Gutiérrez)
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4 – 7:30PM *DIRECTOR Q&A!*
MONDAY, DECEMBER 5 – 7:30PM
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6 – 7:30PM
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7 – 7:30PM
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8 – 5PM
Get tickets here ! http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2720383
A Factory 25 release. Special thanks to Cinema Tropical and Marca Perú.
On the eve of the supposed Mayan apocalypse, a sleepy-eyed teenager named Luz (Muki Sabogal) encounters a 20something slacker named Junior (Terom) in a webcam chat room – but the world appears to go on the next morning, and a curious (and ultimately nervewracking) courtship ensues. In VIDEOFILIA, Peruvian filmmaker Juan Daniel F. Molero represents the world not just as it appears “IRL”; the story takes as much place in the capitol city of Lima as it does online, an alterna-verse drawn as a gobsmacking labyrinth of possible selves, where no choice is permanent and everything is thrown up for ingestion – “content” for the fishes. Junior fancies himself a burgeoning porn connoisseur, while Luz begins to experiment with drugs and the odd internet rendezvous to stave off the crushing boredom of a lonely, latchkey day-to-day life. (Molero litters this story with extra-textural signifiers, not the least of which is the Dragonball Z-themed restaurant where Luz works, typically serving much older men.)
VIDEOFILIA doesn’t attempt a 1:1 ratio of tableaux to criticisms; instead, the film finds its aesthetic gripped in damnable present tense, the casual clarity of Molero’s HD camera (for off-computer sequences) ultimately no more reliable than the glitched-out cyberworld occupied by Luz and Junior. It would be too easy to call this a work of magic realism, as VIDEOFILIA’s loose-limbed depiction of day-to-day life evokes SLACKER as much as it does LOS OLVIDADOS. Molero indulges a 21st century beauty that’s goofy, antic and yet harshly sobering – enamored of the possibilities of online, and yet wary of the void staring back at us whenever we sign on. A great darkness is held barely at arm’s length, with datamoshed compression artifacts slowly encroaching on the film’s otherwise spacious wide-panel frames, threatening to swallow Luz and Junior whole and emboss them in pixels; is this the end times, or just a weak connection?
Juan Daniel F. Molero is a filmmaker born and based in Lima. He has also lived in Buenos Aires and New York where he earned his first experiences in film journalism, video blogging, experimental film and film programming. In 2010 he directed the documentary feature REMINISCENCIAS. His work has screened at many renowned international festivals such as New Horizons, BAFICI, FIDMarseille, Valdivia, Lima Independiente and La Habana, and venues such as The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Museum of Lima and La Casa Encendida in Madrid. His fiction debut film VIDEOFILIA (and Other Viral Syndromes), became the first Peruvian production to ever win the Tiger Award at the Rotterdam Film Festival, and received the Hubert Bals Fund for Post-Production.
“Compared to other thrillers that treat webcams as a structural gimmick or visualize social media in ways that look corny even by the time credits roll, VIDEOFILIA casts a singular spell.” – John DeFore, The Hollywood Reporter
AWARDS:
Post-production Grant from Hubert Bals Fund 2014
Tiger Award for Best Film of International Feature Competition at IFFR 2015
Best Film of International Competition at Lima Independiente Film Festival 2015
University of Lima Jury Award at Lima Independiente Film Festival 2015
Critics’ Award at Atlántida Film Festival 2015
Distribution National Grant from Peruvian National FIlm Board – DAFO 2015
Grand Prix of International Competition at Split FIlm Festival 2015
Special Mention, International Competition, Ayacucho Film Festival 2015
Nominated for Best First Film at the Cinema Tropical Awards 2016
