International Diaspora Film Festival

Saturday 7 November, 3:00 PM

Venue

el olvido (Oblivion)

Heddy Honigmann

The Netherlands, 2008, 93 min.

In Spanish with English subtitles

Winner, Fipresci Prize, DOK Leipzig Film Festival 2008

Winner, Silver Dove, DOK Leipzig Film Festival 2008

Winner, Ecumenical Jury Award, DOK Leipzig Film Festival 2008

Winner, 'Stimulans' Prize for Artistic Success, Dutch Film Fund 2008

Winner, Special Jury Award, Lima Film Festival 2009

Winner, Buyens-Chagoll Prize, Visions du Réel 2009

Winner, Youth's Award, Encuentros de Cine Sudamericano 2009

Winner, Premio Radio Exterior de Espana, Muestra de Cine Latinoamericano de Catalunia 2009

Winner, Distribution Prize, Eurodok Festival 2009

Winner, Best Director: Heddy Honigmann, DOCNZ International Film Festival 2009

Winner, Crystal Film Award, The Netherlands 2009

Heddy Honigmann's long awaited return to Peru in a film about poverty and poetry in a country plundered by the powerful.

Oblivion is an intimate portrait of the forgotten city of Lima, and of its forgotten people. Its stunning imagery juxtaposes shots of rich and poor life in the city, focusing on the way those with limited resources deal with the social injustices that surround them. Through irony, creativity, determination and the power of memory, the film gives voice to a panoply of Lima's invisible citizens, from street urchins performing acrobatics for spare change to a toy merchant, illiterate shoeshine boy and juggler. These moving characters share their dreams and hardships and, through these, defy oblivion. Woven together in Honigmann's delicate fashion, these telling accounts offer a very different sense of Limean society and history.

Director's Biography:

Heddy Honigmann was born in 1951 in Lima, where she lived until 1973. After studying biology and literature at the University of Lima, she trained as a filmmaker in Rome and has lived and worked in the Netherlands since 1978. Her narrative and documentary films explore the power of art, literature, music, poetry and memory as resources to those without.

Venue: Innis Town Hall, 2 Sussex Ave.,
Toronto M5S 1J5 (off St. George St., one block south of Bloor, Subway St. George)
$10 / $8 students and seniors