Motorcycle Diaries

Colour, 35 mm
USA, Germany, United Kingdom, Argentina, Peru, France, Chile, 2004, 128 min
Section: Horizons
Oficiální stránky: www.motorcyclediariesmovie.com

Synopsis

He’s 23, he’s studying medicine — and he doesn’t yet know that he’ll enter history books as Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara. He sets off on a journey through Latin America with his friend Alberto Granado on an old Norton 500 motorbike. It’s 1952 and there’s nothing in front of them but the open road — no tourists, no hotels and no maps, just the wind in their hair. Getting from Argentina to Venezuela is a dream which 8,000 km of road turns into reality. The film was inspired by Guevara’s diaries Notas de viaje and Granado’s book Con el Che por America Latina. The film’s deliberately apolitical slant shows us Guevara as an icon who might have been transferred onto film from a freshly washed T-shirt: only in a roundabout way does it call to mind the future Cuban revolutionary. The film won a BAFTA, the Francois Chalais Award and a prize from the Ecumenical Jury at the Cannes IFF in 2004.

About the director

Walter Salles (b. 1956, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) become established with the drama Central Station (Central do Brasil, 1998) which, until Motorcycle Diaries, won Salles the most awards (Golden Bear and Ecumenical Jury Prize at the Berlin IFF, Audience Prize at the San Sebastian IFF, a Golden Globe and nominations for an Oscar, a César and an Independent Spirit Award). Before this, he made the short film Exposure (A grande arte, 1991), the short documentary Life Somewhere Else (Socorro nobre, 1995) and, with co-director Daniela Thomas, the medium-length works Foreign Land (Terra estrangeira, 1996) and Midnight (Meia noite, 1998). Other films: the medium-length drama Behind the Sun (Abril despedacado, 2001) and the short (with D. Thomas) Guns and Peace (Armas e paz, 2002). He was involved as a producer in the award-winning drama City of God (Cidade de Deus, 2002).