Secret Wedding

Director: Alejandro Agresti
Screenwriters: Alejandro Agresti

Institute History

  • 1990 Sundance Film Festival

Description

A man appears out of nowhere in present-day Buenos Aires believing it is still 1976 when the military junta ruled, without a memory of his name or his "disappearance." He is picked up by the police and during interrogation, begins to remember pieces of his past: his job as a bus driver, the town he lived in, and Tota, the woman he loved. He embarks home to look for Tota and be reunited with her. Instead he returns to a stilted town where little has changed; Tota still waits for him but refuses to recognize him (as does everyone else in the town). Rather than convince her of his true identity, he attempts to win her love allover again and persuade her to leave behind the memory of her past love.

Upon this simple tableau of a sensitive love story, director Alejandro Agresti articulates a scathing commentary on contemporary Argentine politics and the issue of the country's "disappeared," unequivocally stating that history will repeat itself. Time hasn't changed the conditions, only the perpetrators: in Secret Wedding the Church reigns over the townsfolk with a strong arm of corruption and repression.

As with his riveting Love Is A Fat Woman, presented at the 1988 Festival, Agresti stylistically keeps his film free of the magical realism prevalent in Latin American cinema. However, even with its social commentary, this is a deeply moving, emotional story. A work of extraordinary insight and maturity, Secret Wedding marks Agresti as one of Argentina's most important filmmakers.


Sunday, January 21, 7:15 p.m.
Holiday Village Cinema II

Monday, January 22, 4:00 p.m.
Egyptian Theatre

Saturday, January 27, 4:15 p.m.
Holiday Village Cinema II

— Alberto Garcia

Screening Details

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