Retablo, the debut feature by Álvaro Delgado Aparicio, has been named the Peruvian candidate for the 92nd edition of the Academy Awards, with the aim of getting the second nomination for the South American nation since the 2009 film The Milk of Sorrow by Claudia Llosa.
Retablo, which had its world premiere at the 2018 Berlin Film Festival, tells the story of 14-year-old Segundo, who lives with his parents in a village high in the high mountains of Peru. His father Noé is a respected artist and Segundo’s role model. Noé hand-crafts altarpieces, decorated shrines for church and home, and is teaching Segundo the necessary skills to carry on in his footsteps. But cracks have developed in their close relationship because Noé is keeping a dark secret.
With brutal honesty and saturated colors, the film peeks behind the facade of a seemingly intact village community where homophobic attitudes enforced by patriarchal laws are carried out with remorseless violence. It sketches a visually powerful panorama of a world in which a young artist is searching for his niche.
