by Antonio Mejías-Rentas
Miguel Ángel Asturias
BOOK TO FILM: Coinciding with the national release of the movie adaptation of one of Gabriel García Márquez’s most beloved books, a second work by a Latin American Nobel laureate is making it to the big screen.
Opening last week in Venezuela, Sr. Presidente is based on the satirical novel El señor presidente by Guatemalan writer Miguel Ángel Asturias. The tale of an abusive Latin American dictator is set in Venezuela in the year 2021 and its criticism is clearly aimed at the country’s president, Hugo Chávez, who intends to rule the country until then.
Sr. Presidente is the first film produced in some 20years by RCTV, the Venezuela company struck of its broadcasting license by Chávez. RCTV programming is currently seen on cable.
Gabriel García Márquez
“We are searching for a message about what is happening to us, not just here (in Venezuela) but also what’s happened to us over the past century in Latin America,” said Rómulo Guardia, the fi lm’s director.
Sr. Presidente opened in Venezuela on the same day that Love in the Time of Cholera opened in the United States. The latter is based on the novel by Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez.
Asturias won the Nobel prize for Literature in 1967. García Márquez took the award in 1902.
In other film news:
- Production of Steven Soderbergh’s two films about Ernesto “Che” Guevara moved to the Mexican state of Campeche last week. The films, El argentino and Guerrilla, star Benicio del Toro.
- Mal de amores, the Puerto Rican contender for the Best Foreign Language Oscar nomination, was one of three fi lms taking the audience award at the Chicago International Film Festival.
Hispanic Link.
