The Salvadoran documentary film Cachada: The Opportunity, the debut feature film by Marlén Viñayo was the winner of the Audience Award at the 2019 edition of the SXSW Film Festival in the Global category.
The film follows five Salvadoran women—poor, single mothers, street vendors—who have decided to embark on an unlikely dream: they want to become theater actresses. After forming their own company, they accept the challenge of putting on a play through which they'll bring their cruel life stories to the stage. What began as an experiment has turned into the only opportunity to transform their lives, but will they be able to face their past and get over their fears, traumas and dark secrets?
Filmed over a year and a half, the observational documentary is witness to the process of creating their play, through which they'll discover themselves as victims and victimizers in a cycle of multigenerational violence.
Spanish-born Viñayo is a filmmaker based in El Salvador working in film and TV as a director, producer and documentary screenwriter. In 2016 she founded her production company La Jaula Abierta, and has worked for PBS Frontline, BBC News and CCTV Americas Now, among others.
The 2019 edition of the SXSW Film Festival took place March 8 - 17 in Austin, Texas.
