Top 20 Alternative Picks for Cannes 2013: Lucia Puenzo’s Wakolda

Wakolda – Lucia Punezo

Section: Un Certain Regard

Buzz: After winning the Critics Week Grand Prize in 2007 for her directorial debut, XXY, Argentinean director Lucia Puenzo took her sophomore effort, The Fish Child to Berlin and Tribeca. The boundary pushing Puenzo leaves behind more explicit sexuality themed material for a more notorious fact based tale concerning the monstrous Josef Mengele for this last minute addition to Un Certain Regard. Based on the potency of her previous titles, there’s a good possibility that Puenzo could steal the thunder away from some of the other films in this section, which is populated by a bevy of female directors.

The Gist: Wakolda, based on Puenzo’s own novel, depicts the true story of an Argentine family who lived with Josef Mengele without knowing his true identity, and of a girl who fell in love with one of the biggest criminals of all times.