The Erection of Toribio Bardelli / La erección de Toribio Bardelli, the third feature film by Adrián Saba, has been announced as Peru’s official candidate for Best International Film at the 96th edition of the Academy Awards.
The film, which recently had its world premiere at the Lima Film Festival, stars Gustavo Bueno, Gisela Ponce de León, and Rodrigo Sánchez Patiño. The Erection of Toribio Bardelli follows a dysfunctional family that is pressed to re-examines their lives, after the loss of their mother. As father and children come to terms with their own existence, the film becomes a tender and subtle meditation on grief.
This marks the second time that director Saba represents Peru at the Oscars, after his debut feature The Cleaner / El limpiador was selected as the country’s candidate in 2013. Peru nabbed a nomination for Best Motion Picture in a Foreign Language in 2009 for Claudia Llosa’s The Milk of Sorrow / La teta asustada.
