Arturo Ripstein (Director), Paz Alicia Garciadiego (Screenwriter) – Bleak Street (La Calle de la Amargura).
FRED’s Matt Micucci interviews the great Mexican filmmaker Arturo Ripstein and his wife, his screenwriter and collaborator Paz Alicia Garciadiego. The two presented their latest work BLEAK STREET (La Calle de la Amargura) out of competition at the 72nd Venice Film Festival.
Arturo Ripstein and Paz Alicia Garciadiego talk to us about the film’s air of timelessness, aided by the choice of employing black and white photography. Ripstein also stops to give us his opinion of black and white photography and its power in general. Garciadiego then talks about where the inspiration of the story came from, and gives us an insightful summation of the backdrop and many influences that were put together and which contribute to the greatness of their latest work.
On top of this, we focus on the human take on the story’s peculiar characters, and the sense of humour that is a true driving force in the film. The two together make the story all the more powerful, dramatic but also very enjoyable and entertaining.
BLEAK STREET (La Calle de la Amargura): In the early morning hours, two elderly whores go back to their hovels. They are not tired from working. They are tired of not doing so. One has problems at home with her teenage daughter and her cross-dressing husband; the other, with her loneliness. But that night, they have a date to celebrate the victory in the ring of two wrestlers, twin midgets wearing masks. At the hourly hotel, in order to rob the tiny men of their earnings, they drug them with eye drops. But the dose proves fatal. They murder them unintentionally. Scared and confused, they decide to hide from the police and run away together to live, as they always have, on Bleak Street. They are arrested.
Alice Rohrwacher has been appointed President of the Caméra d’or Jury at Cannes 2025. Known for her poetic and visionary cinema, Rohrwacher will award the best first feature at the festival’s closing ceremony on May 24.