MUBI, the acclaimed curated online cinema platform, has announced the online premiere of two new Latin American films for this month of April: the Argentine film The Pretty Ones / Las lindas by Melisa Liebenthal (2016), and the Chilean film Nona. If they Soak Me, I’ll Burn Them / Nona. Si me mojan, yo los quemo by Camila José Donoso. These titles add to MUBI’s current slate of three other Latin American films.
Winner of the Bright Future Award at Rotterdam, director Liebenthal places herself at the center of her candid essay film The Pretty Ones. Interviewing childhood friends about their shared coming-of-age experiences, The Pretty Ones interrogates the construction of femininity and its relationship to images. The film premieres on Wednesday, April 1.
After Casa Roshell, Chilean director Donoso turns to her grandmother for a mysteriously fictional, gorgeously dreamlike character study. Meet Nona: an incendiary woman and a force of nature with deep Pinochet-era scars, and an invigorating look of defiance behind those shades. Nona. If they Soak Me, I’ll Burn Them premieres on Thursday, April 2.
The three other Latin American titles currently streaming on MUBI are the Argentine film The Daughters of Fire / Las hijas del fuego (2018) by Albertina Carri, the Ecuadorian film Alba (2016) by Ana Cristina Barragán, and the Mexican film Workers (2013) by José Luis Valle.
Few films have fought the “male gaze” quite like The Daughters of Fire. Argentine director Carri responds to cinema’s systemic patriarchy with this political porn: a lesbian and feminist road movie that proudly subverts paradigms of beauty, sexuality, and representation with radical determination.
Alba is an atmospheric coming-of-age tale from Ecuador that eschews any sentimentality to convey the shyness and confusion of a young girl as she navigates the troubled waters of childhood. An award-winning first feature, carried by poignant, understated performances.
Workers, the fiction debut from Chile-born director Valle, is a deadpan comedy and an impressive masterclass in emotional subtlety and sense of timing. Minimalist in capturing the inner worlds of each character, Workers offers a biting, urgent commentary on the alienating ethics of modern labor.
