The Brazilian film Invisible Life / A Vida de Eurídice Gusmão by Karim Aïnouz and the Peruvian film Retablo by Álvaro Delgado Aparicio, have earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best International Film. The two Latin American films are competing against the Korean film Parasite by Bong Joon-Ho, the French film The Misérables by Ladj Ly and Portrait of a Lady on Fire by Céline Sciamma, and the British film The Souvenir by Joanna Hogg.
The winner of the Un Certain Regard award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and Brazil’s submission for this year’s Oscars, Invisible Life is a tropical melodrama by Karim Aïnouz (Madame Satã). Living in Rio de Janeiro in the 1940s, inseparable sisters Guida and Euridice Gusmão are, like all women of their generation, raised to be essentially invisible in the eyes of Brazilian society. Each of the girls has her own special dream, however, and neither can imagine life without the other. Yet one day they’ll have to go their separate ways. Aïnouz’s acclaimed film is based on the novel by Martha Batalha.
Aparicio’s debut feature Retablo, which had its world premiere at the 2018 Berlin Film Festival, tells the story of 14-year-old Segundo, who lives with his parents in a village high in the high mountains of Peru. His father Noé is a respected artist and Segundo’s role model. Noé hand-crafts altarpieces, decorated shrines for church and home, and is teaching Segundo the necessary skills to carry on in his footsteps. But cracks have developed in their close relationship because Noé is keeping a dark secret.
Other Latino nominee is Rashaad Ernesto Gree, who was nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards for his film Premature: for John Cassavetes Award and the Someone to Watch Award. Additionally, filmmakers Erick Stoll & Chase Whiteside were nominated for the Truer Than Fiction Award for their documentary film América which they shot in Mexico.
The winners of the 35th edition of the Independent Spirit Awards will be announced at a ceremony at Santa Monica, California on February 8, the day before the Academy Awards.
