DIOSES is a biting slice-of-life portrait of the Peruvian upper class (courtesy Global Film Initiative)
DIOSES (GODS) (Josué Méndez, 2008)
MoMA Film
Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Thursday, January 14, 4:00 & Saturday, January 23, 1:30
Series runs January 14-29
Tickets: $10, in person only, may be applied to museum admission within thirty days, same-day screenings free with museum admission, available at Film and Media Desk
212-708-9400
www.moma.org
www.diosesthemovie.com
Named Best Peruvian Feature at the 2008 Lima Film Festival and Best Film at the Biarritz Film Festival, DIOSES (GODS) opens the seventh annual Global Lens series at MoMA, which promotes socially relevant works from developing nations. Written and directed by Josué Méndez (DÍAS DE SANTIAGO), DIOSES takes a biting look at the exclusive Peruvian upper class. While wealthy industrialist Agustín (Edgar Saba) is introducing his young fiancée, Elisa (Maricielo Effio), to snooty society people spending the summer at a fancy beach retreat, his daughter, Andrea (Anahí de Cárdenas), is drinking and drugging herself to sleep every night at wild parties, not remembering whom she slept with, as her tortured brother, Diego (Sergio Gjurinovic), pines away for her physical love. Elisa, from a poor family, studies to try to fit in, reading books on gardening and mythology to keep up with the other women and refusing to allow her mother and grandmother to visit for fear that her lower-class roots will spoil her entrée. Meanwhile, Agustín is trying to prepare his son to join him at the factory, but Diego seems more concerned with peeking at and touching his sister’s body as she sleeps off another crazy night. Featuring beautiful cinematography by Mario Bassino, DIOSES is an intelligent slice-of-life portrait of the shallow, materialistic relationships among the Peruvian upper class, a socially conscious depiction of the vapid emptiness of connection they have with each other, themselves, and the real world.
The Global Lens series also includes Bui Thac Chuyen’s Vietnamese drama CHOI VOI (ADRIFT), Lyes Salem’s Algerian tale MASCARADES (MASQUERADES), Alejandro Gerber Bicecci’s Mexican story VAHO (BECLOUD), Granaz Moussavi’s MY TEHRAN FOR SALE from Iran, Enrique Buchichio’s EL CUARTO DE LEO (LEO’S ROOM) from Mexico, Rajesh Shera’s Indian tragedy OCEAN OF AN OLD MAN, and Zang Chi’s highly regarded Chinese film DIXIA DE TIANKONG (THE SHAFT).