Italians dig Manero: Pablo Larraín wins big in Torino

Pablo Larraín’s Tony Manero received top kudos in the form of Best Film, Best Actor and the FIPRESCI award for Best Pic at the 26th edition of the Torino Film Festival. The jury was comprised of Alexey German jr., Jonathan Lethem, Dito Montiel, Alba Rohrwacher and Jerzy Stuhr. I’m a big fan of this very disturbing, extremely dark commentary about the fear and the wrath felt by Augusto Pinochet’s oppressive rule over Chile, and actor Alfredo Castro’s take on a disco-teaching, psychopath, inherently ugly person is perhaps one of the year’s most memorable characters. I caught Larraín’s film at Cannes this year, and it had recent North American preems at TIFF and NYFF but not surprisingly, it has little chances from going from the film fest circuit to a domestic, theatrical release. 

The Jury of the Fipresci Award had this to say about the Chilean-Brazilian film: “For its powerful, darkly comic and obliquely political portrayal of life in a repressive police state, represented by a psychopathic wannabe disco-dancer, who is dissected by an unrelenting use of a handheld camera.”