La Ciénaga, the landmark film by Argentine director Lucrecia Martel is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. One of the key artworks of the so-called New Argentine Cinema of the late nineties and early aughts, and the debut feature of one of the leading filmmakers in the world today, had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival on Thursday, February 8, 2001.
The director attended the world premiere at the Berlinale with actors Mercedes Morán and Juan Cruz Bordeu, and the film and the filmmaker made history becoming the first woman and first Latin American production to win the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize. Following its successful Berlinale premiere, where the film was received to great critical acclaim, the film had its Argentine premiere at the Mar del Plata Film Festival on March 8, and it was released in local theaters on April 12, 2001.
Starring Graciela Borges, Morán, Martín Adjemián, Daniel Valenzuela, and Leonora Balcarce, the film is set in the province of Salta, in the north of Argentina where summers can be uncomfortably hot and humid. The film brilliantly depicts the decadence the Argentine middle-class through the story of Mecha and her family, which includes four accident-prone teenagers, a husband who dyes his hair, and her cousin who has four noisy small children.
La Ciénaga enjoyed a very successful film festival run playing at numerous international events including Karlovy Vary, Toronto, Rotterdam, and Havana. The Argentine film had its U.S. premiere on October 2, 2001 at the New York Film Festival, and it was theatrically released immediately after by the hand of distributor Cowboy Pictures.
In 2009, Martel’s film was selected as the best Latin American of the decade based on a poll that Cinema Tropical conducted among film professionals, and in 2015, the film was released in a special DVD and blu-ray edition by The Criterion Collection.
