Screening of Penèlope and discussion with Filmmaker Eva Vila

Date: 

Wednesday, November 7, 2018, 5:00pm

Location: 

Yenching Auditorium, 2 Divinity Ave, Cambridge

Guest moderator: Dr. Jaume Martí Olivella, University of New Hampshire

Sponsors: Institut Ramon Llull, Observatorio Cervantes and the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures

Born in Barcelona in 1975, Eva Vila is well known for developing an innovative and particular language of sound in cinema. She studied Music and Humanistics in Barcelona. She directed Bajarí (2013), which premiered at IDFA and was distributed in Japan, as well as the documentary BSide, which premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and screened at the National Gallery in Washington, among other venues. She curates and helps developing projects for the Masters in Creative Documentary at Pompeu Fabra University. In 2010, she founded an independent production company called Araki Films. She is also a member of the Catalan Academy of Cinema. Eva has directed, written and co-produced, with Monika Derenda of Poland Studio, her latest feature film Penèlope, a revisiting of The Odyssey from the point of view of women, supported by Eurimages.

 

Information about the film:

Once upon a time, in a little place in the mountains, there was an old dressmaker who would weave and unweave the clothes of an entire village. Nobody has been waiting longer than her. One day, Ramon returns to that very same place, his birthplace, to reunite with his people after decades of absence. But no one recognizes him when he returns. Not even her. He has become a stranger.

Through a revisitation of the Odyssey's myth, Penèlope taps into the universal meaning of the act of waiting. Penelope is the mother, the earth, the starting point. Through her, possibly the last Penelope in our times, we will remember who we were to understand better who we are.

 

See also: Special Events