Red Ink

Colour, 35mm
Peru, 2000, 121 min
Section: Horizons - Awarded Films

Synopsis

Journalism student Alfonso gets an internship at a daily tabloid. He wants to be a writer and considers the internship as a necessary evil – especially after being assigned to the lurid crime and accident pages instead of the culture section as he’d wanted. To top it all he’s got to work with his boss, Faúndez, who, in contrast to Alfonso, moves among bloody corpses without the slightest care. Initially, Alfonso want to run away because he abhors Faúndez’s life philosophy and can’t stomach the underworld stories he has to cover. But even in the tough and realistic atmosphere of the tabloid business a bond forms between Alfonso and his boss, and he makes his way not only into the newspaperman’s craft but also enters into life’s mysteries. The star of the film Gianfranco Brero won Best Actor at the San Sebastian IFF.

About the director

Francisco J. Lombardi (b. 1949, Tacna, Peru) began to write for the film magazine Hablemos de Cine in 1965, and two years later left for Argentina to study film. After returning to Lima he studied direction at university, then went on to film criticism and photography. In 1974 he became a investor in Producciones Inca Films S. A. whose operations he took over in 1984 and where he began producing most of his films. In 1977, after making short films, he shot his writing-directing feature debut Death at Dawn (Muerte al amanecer, 1977). His films have won a number of international awards of which Maruja in Hell (Maruja en el infierno, 1983), The City and the Dogs (La ciudad y los perros, 1984) and Fallen from Heaven (Caídos del cielo, 1990) were nominated for Oscars.