Gamecock Breeder

Colour, 35 mm
Argentina, 2009, 90 min
Section: Another View

Synopsis

Mario, who raises and trains fighting cocks, is a man accustomed to solitude and to a rhythm determined by occasional agricultural jobs. One of these takes him to a faraway village where he meets the elderly Julia, who lost her entire family in a car accident. Since that time she has lived immersed in her loss and her religion. Without knowing how to handle their feelings, Mario discovers new emotions and Julia breaks her mourning silence... Working with a slightly absurd ground plan and vividly plastic images, this intense drama investigates strong emotions, the inability to express oneself, unfathomable relations, pain, love, and loneliness, as well as outbursts of the unexpressed and repressed. As with his debut, the director employs a minimum of characters to unfold an affecting little story set in a place where time has stopped. Deeply embedded in the atmosphere of the region, this country melodrama deals with meeting and missing, and with the vast distance between body and soul.

About the director

Sergio Martín Mazza graduated in image and sound design from the University of Buenos Aires. At the same time he took an interest in audiovisual direction and fine art, and worked shooting commercials and writing plays. He is a member of a band, and he lectures in media aesthetics and direction at the University of Buenos Aires. In 2004 he founded the production company Masa Latina with the goal of producing quality artistic works for various media. The company produced his feature debut The Yellow (El amarillo). Gamecock Breeder, his second feature, won Best Latin American Actor for Gustavo Almada at the Mar del Plata festival. Mazza is currently working on a new movie entitled Graba.