Details
Series curated by Javier Guerrero (Princeton University) & Juana Suárez (New York University)
Marking the 50th anniversary, this September 11, of the military coup against President Allende in Chile, this retrospective is dedicated to Alfredo Castro, the internationally acclaimed Chilean actor whose work is essential to a deep exploration of the cruelty of the dictatorship led by Augusto Pinochet (1973-1989). Inspired by the French playwright Antonin Artaud, Castro has theorized the ‘third body,’ a key concept in the study of unknown and unconfessed human drives. In this retrospective, we privilege Castro’s close, decades-long collaboration with the Chilean director Pablo Larraín.
“As an actor, I invoke the most primitive and unlearned parts of myself, memory and oblivion from another time and place, to unleash a ghost that can stage the desired scenes, the most ominous and cruel ones, which definitively activate my organism.” Alfredo Castro.
“Throughout my career I have understood that the act of playing another person requires ending the separation between the actor’s body and the fictional body of the character, allowing for a dissolution of one into the other. This leads me to believe in the existence of a third body, a mediating body between the actor and the character.” Alfredo Castro.
“It is difficult to determine the border between fiction and reality in Pablo Larraín’s filmography. That is why I approach the characters that I have played in his films from the point of view of testimony, like metabolized confessions that require me to inhabit the dangerous and confused limit of insanity… and in that way I get closer to portraying the aspects of life that cannot be portrayed.” Alfredo Castro.
Event information (6th of 8)
El Conde. Q&A with Alfredo Castro
Director: Pablo Larraín
2023 / 110min / DCP
Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet (Jaime Vadell) is a vampire who hides away in a ruined mansion at the continent’s cold southern tip. At two hundred and fifty years old, Pinochet decides to stop drinking blood and abandon eternal life. Despite the opportunism of his family and right-hand-man-turned-butler Fyodor Krassnoff (Alfredo Castro), an unexpected relationship inspires him to devote himself to counterrevolutionary passions.
“Alfredo Castro portrays historic torturer Fyodor Krassnoff, whose love for Pinochet and thirst for blood gave him an almost painful eternal life. This cold-blood character is an impressive embodiment of the refined cruelty of fascism.” —Series curators Javier Guerrero and Juana Suárez.
Series film screening titles, dates and locations:
Click on links to event posting.
El Conde -Tuesday October 31--Princeton University, East Pyne 010 6:00 pm
Tengo miedo torero / My Tender Matador - Wednesday November 1--Princeton University, East Pyne 010 5:30 pm
El Club / The Club - Thursday November 2—Fordham University, Keating Hall 3 (Rose Hill Campus) 6:00 pm
Los perros / The Dogs - Friday November 3--Princeton University, East Pyne 010 6:00 pm
Post Mortem - Friday November 3-Metrograph 5:30 pm
El Conde - Friday November 3-Metrograph 8:15 pm
Tony Manero - Saturday November 4-Metrograph 2:20 pm
No - Saturday November 4-Metrograph 5:00 pm
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