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EL CHICO QUE MIENTE

by Marité Ugás
Venezuela, Perù 2011, 99’

With: Iker Fernández, Francisco Denis

Production: Sudaca Films

 

GENERATION 14plus

 

Marité Ugás, Iker Fernandez und Francisco Denis will be available for interviews on 14.02. and 15.02.

Peruvian director Marité Ugás’ second feature THE KID WHO LIES takes us into the conflicted internal world of its 13-year-old hero trying to make sense out of his life marred by tragedy. In an increasingly hypnotic journey set in the lush nature and small towns of the Venezuelan coast, skipping between past and present, we follow the boy on his path to self-discovery.

 

Hitching rides when he can and walking when he cannot, the boy relies on the kindness of strangers for food and shelter. ln order to survive, he captivates people by telling them anecdotes about a tragedy that changed his life forever. In his tales, sometimes he is rescued by his mother, who sacrifices herself to save him; at other times it is his father who dies. Each story, however, reveals a small kernel of truth, and slowly his past becomes clearer.

Ten years ago, a mudslide tore his world apart. Many disappeared, his mother among them. Now the memories, carefully filtered by his father who is himself trying to pick his life out of the ruins, contradict each other and push him to search for his own story.

He has a difficult road ahead, but he will also find his own universe of affections and feelings. While crossing the desert, the boy doesn't know whether to laugh or cry, but the crack in his soul is starting to heal.  

 

The film takes its cues from a natural disaster in Venezuela that has become an event of great symbolic significance. In December 1999, a mudslide enveloped a whole stretch of the coast, just 20 minutes from Caracas. The town was washed away, many were killed. Very little has changed in the more than ten years since this tragedy.

 

 

About the director

Marité Ugás was born in Peru. After graduating from the University iof Lima in Communications, she joined the first generation of EIC TV, Cuba, where she directed her first film, BELEN NEIGHBORHOOD. Together with a few other filmmakers, among them Mariana Rondón, she founded her Caracas-based company Sudaca Films in 1992. Between 1988 and 1995, she realized several shorts, among them COTIDIANO, awarded with the Silver Caravel, Bilbao, 1993.  

Her first feature film, AT MIDNIGHT AND A HALF (1999), co-directed with Rondón, premiered at the Tokyo Film Fest and participated in more than 40 international film festivals, receiving five awards as best first feature. As producer and editor, she worked on POSTGARDS FROM LENINGRAD (2007) which went on to win 22 international awards.

 

Her second feature film, THE KID WHO LIES, is supported by CNAC (Venezuela), lbermedia, and EDD-Germany.

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