The Criterion Collection, the American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films,” has announced the blu-ray and DVD release of the Guatemalan political horror movie La Llorona by Jayro Bustamante, marking the first Central American film to be part of the exclusive collection.
The Golden Globe-nominated film will be released on October 18, 2022 with a new cover by Brazilian visual artist João Ruas, and some added bonus including a new interview with Bustamante, a documentary on the making of the film featuring interviews with cast and crew, trailer, new English subtitle translation, plus an essay by journalist and novelist Francisco Goldman.
The official synopsis of the Criterion Collection for the new blu-ray and DVD release of the film reads as follows:
“A country’s bloody history stains the present in the Guatemalan auteur Jayro Bustamante’s transfixing fusion of folk horror and searing political commentary, inspired by the real-life indictment of the authoritarian Efraín Ríos Montt for crimes against humanity. A notorious, now aging former military dictator stands trial for atrocities committed against Guatemala’s Mayan communities. While battling legal repercussions and the people’s demands for justice, he and his family are plagued by a series of increasingly strange and disturbing occurrences, seemingly brought on by an enigmatic new housekeeper (María Mercedes Coroy). With a restraint that renders the film’s shocks all the more potent, Bustamante crafts a chilling vision of a nation reckoning with collective harms and the restless ghosts of a past that refuses to die.”
