Feature film
The Airship
El dirigible
Pablo Dotta · 1994
Synopsis
Maude, a French journalist, arrives in Montevideo to meet Juan Carlos Onetti and dig into the history of the city. She is looking for photographs: those of the day President Baltasar Brum took his own life in front of the press, and those of an airship that passed over the city. A translator, then a photographer try to help her; an inspector investigates the theft of a kiosk, and a gang of teenagers crosses their path. A recovered photograph and a family film frame the narrative, in a grey, misty city.
Context
Produced by Nubes Montevideo with the British channel Channel 4, and with the support of schools and institutes in Mexico and Cuba, the film cost eight hundred thousand dollars; the photography is by José María Ciganda and Miguel Abal, the music by Fernando Cabrera. Released in Montevideo on 22 July 1994, it is the first Uruguayan film shown at Cannes, in the Critics' Week, and then went on to Sitges, San Sebastián, Gramado, Rio and Chicago. It drew only 13,188 spectators, far from the million it would have needed to cover its costs.
Who it is for
A feature film in Spanish, of a little under an hour and a half, with a misty atmosphere.
Prizes and reception
Coral Prize for a first work in Havana in 1994; critics are divided between “imprescindible” and “fracaso distinguido”.
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