I was asked about this movie today and how to get it, because it appears to be very intersting, I will try to get it thru some friends from Paraguay, one of my friends was the photographer and the other one draw Hamaca Paraguaya’s logo =)

“Hamaca Paraguaya” (2006) directed by Paz Encina was nominated for the Cannes Film Festival and won the FIPRESCI prize in 2006 and has participated in many other festivals.

I haven’t seen it yet but I’ve read some interesting comments about it.

Directed by: Paz Encina

Release Date: 2 November 2006

Plot outline: Set in 1935, a couple are waiting for their son, rain and better days

Language: Guarani

Genre: Drama

Runtime: 78 min

Diana Sanchez wrote this text about Hamaca Paraguay

Hamaca Paraguaya is in many ways a modern-day requiem.
This is an intense and astonishingly unconventional film; its non-linear narrative unfolds through extremely long takes and mesmerizing scenes. The majority takes place on a hammock in the Paraguayan countryside, where a mature couple (Ramón del Río and Georgina Genes) sits together talking, drinking tetere and waiting for their beloved son to return from the ruinous Chaco War with Bolivia. Shot with a stationary camera, the scene perfectly captures the couple’s intimate rapport. The viewer becomes increasingly involved in the film, mesmerized by the pair’s chemistry, progressively identifying with and understanding their pain.
The film’s original and highly effective use of voice-over further bonds us to its characters. As we gradually immerse ourselves in the narrative and listen to their conversation full of mundane daily observations, we realize that these dialogues have taken place many times before. When the man and the woman part to tend to their daily chores, we hear in voice-over the last conversation each had with their son. Through this most oblique manner, we discover just how devastating a void has been left by his departure.
Encina not only laments the couple’s loss, but the loss of all the people of Paraguay, a nation in a constant state of waiting, forever hoping for a better future. Ruled by a succession of dictators, this land-locked nation remains one of Latin America’s poorest. Encina’s requiem for her homeland and her people is so beautifully accomplished that it goes beyond being a great achievement for Paraguayan filmmaking, to being a new landmark in cinema as a whole.

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