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HomeNewsArchivesAWARD-WINNING FILM IN SPANISH IS A FUND RAISER

AWARD-WINNING FILM IN SPANISH IS A FUND RAISER

Feb. 9, 2004 – The Foreign Language Departments of Charlotte Amalie and Ivanna Eudora Kean High Schools are sponsoring a movie night at Market Square East on Feb. 25 for the showing of an award-winning Spanish-language film.
The feature-length motion picture, "Lugares Comunes" ("Common Places"), is a Spanish/Argentinean production that received the 2003 Goya Awards — Spain's equivalent of the U.S. Oscars — for best actress and best screenplay. It stars Federico Luppi and Mercedes Sampietro and was directed by Adolfo Aristarain, who shared the screenplay award with Kathy Saavedra.
Sampietro has won a total of 10 best actress Goyas in her career.
Described online as a modern-day family drama, the 115-minute film is set in Buenos Aires, Cordoba and Madrid. A review by Howard Schumann from the 2003 Vancouver Film Festival give this synopsis:
Fernando (Luppi), a politically left-leaning professor in his 60s in Buenos Aires, and his wife, Lili (Sampietro), a social worker, are loving partners who are respected in the community. When Fernando is forced to take early retirement with a meager pension due to the economic crisis in Argentina, the couple must make drastic decisions that threaten the foundations of their comfortable life.
Based on the novel "The Renaissance" by Lorenzo F. Aristarain, the film "is a story about love, getting older and discovering what is important in life. It is also an acid social comment on the current state of life in Argentina, where thousands of people have had to face a similar end to their secure middle class existence," Schumann wrote.
The couple's son, living comfortably in Spain with his own family, offers his parents assistance, but Fernando refuses, berating him for abandoning his homeland and selling out to make money. Forced to sell their apartment in the city, the parents purchase a farm and embark on adjustment to rural life, striving to live out their lives with dignity and purpose. "It is an honest film that celebrates the strength of a loving family," Schumann stated.
According to Myrna van Beverhoudt, the Education Department district foreign language coordinator, the film is a benefit for the high school departments.
The showing is set for 7 p.m. Tickets are $10. They may be purchased in advance at both schools, The Fabric Store on Goat Street, and Eddie's Record Store on Rothschild Francis "Market" Square. For more information, call van Beverhoudt at 775-2250, ext. 240.

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