10 · 19 · 06 El Carnaval de Sodoma is Well Received By Audiences In Morelia Share with twitter Share with facebook Share with mail Copy to clipboard Clara Sánchez El Carnaval de Sodoma takes place in a dilapidated bordello, where a poet, driven by desire and frustration, meets a bizarre collection of characters that range form a revolutionary to prostitute with low self-esteem. The lives of these characters change with the arrival of an outsider, a woman with delusions of grandeur. During the press conference held before the premiere of the film, which was attended by scriptwriter Paz Alicia García Diego and actors Carlos Chávez, Isabel Ruíz, Juan Carlos Remolina, and Alejandra Vicencio, Arturo Ripstein was asked to comment on his vision of despair, a theme that seems to dominate his work: “I’m a director who has no hope, a pessimist: the tone in my films merely reflects the way I see reality. Look around you: we live in a harsh, terrible world. My only hope is Miguel.” Miguel Necoechea, the film’s producer, said: “Hope exists when there is something worth fighting for. The starting point of many great stories is despair; the retelling of despair is precisely what brings hope, the moment when darkness finds a way out. The future depends on that.” Carlos Chávez, who has worked in 14 of Ripstein’s films, said the shooting was “like an organized structure ruled by anarchy at least the director had some vague notion of what was going on,” he joked. “It was an intense experience, there were 20 of us living in the same house for over a month and a half.” Necoechea also said that the film will be part of the National Cinematheque’s International Film Showcase, which takes place in November. “El Carnaval will premiere in theaters nationally in January; and in February, it will premiere in Spain.” After the screening, the director was approached by a number of young people, who asked for autographs, advice, and expressed their admiration for his work.
