The Museum of the Modern Art will present the long-awaited theatrical run of the Argentinean film El Estudiante (pictured) the critically acclaimed directorial debut by Santiago Mitre. The film will play August 22-28 at MoMA in New York City.
Winner of the award for Best Film at the Cartagena and the Gijón Film Festivals, Special Jury Prizes at BAFICI (Buenos Aires) and Locarno, Best First Film at the Cinema Tropical Awards, and a highlight of the New York and Toronto, Film Festival, El Estudiante charts the political awakening of a student at the University of Buenos Aires.
In this tense and shrewdly observed bildungsroman, a brilliant successor to films like Jean-Luc Godard’s Tout va bien (1972) and Krzysztof Zanussi’s Camouflage (1977), the apathetic yet seductive Roque (played by Esteban Lamothe) is drawn into the campus intrigue of warring student political parties, and finds himself torn between two competing impulses: the radical idealism of his girlfriend, a teacher assistant, and the realpolitik cunning of his mentor, a retired politician turned professor.
Screenwriter-director Mitre, who has written award-winning scripts for Pablo Trapero and Walter Salles, makes his feature film debut with a sophisticated and subtle meditation on the still-unhealed wounds of Argentina’s Dirty War, and on the clash between old-guard Peronists and a younger generation of leftist activists in Buenos Aires today.
The one-week run at MoMA is organized by Joshua Siegel, Associate Curator, Department of Film. El Estudiante is released by Cinema Tropical and Alpha Violet. Click here to visit MoMA's website with more information.
