Saturday, June 19, 2004

3rd Ibero American Film Festival 2004 detail



18 – 27 June 2004
HELP Institute, Pusat Bandar Damansara, Kuala Lumpur

Celebrating the rich diversity of Ibero-American cinema with 16 films from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and Venezuela.

Free admission.

Screening Schedule

Fri 18 June 6.30pm
Official Opening of Festival – by invitation

Screening of María Cano (Colombia) – by invitation

Sat 19 June
6.30pm
A Dog's Testament (Brazil)
It Happened in Havana (Cuba)

8.30pm
Death of a Bureaucrat (Cuba)
The Tigress (Ecuador)

Sun 20 June
6.30pm
The Abalone Rush (Chile)
Roraima (Venezuela)

8.30pm
Never Too Young to Dream (Mexico)
Police Woman (Portugal)

Mon 21 June
6.30pm
The Tigress (Ecuador)
Coronación (Chile)

Tue 22 June
6.30pm
Hail St John! (Brazil)
Mondays in the Sun (Spain)

Wed 23 June
6.30pm
María Cano (Colombia)
The Abalone Rush (Chile)

8.30pm
Gold River (Portugal)
Police Woman (Portugal)

Thur 24 June
6.30pm
Box 507 (Spain)
Never Too Young to Dream (Mexico)

8.30pm
Mondays in the Sun (Spain)
Hail St John! (Brazil)

Fri 25 June
6.30pm
The Ambassador of India (Colombia)
One Life & Two Trails (Venezuela)

8.30pm
It Happened in Havana (Cuba)
Roraima (Venezuela)

Sat 26 June
6.30pm
Coronación (Chile)
Gold River (Portugal)

8.30pm
Box 507 (Spain)
María Cano (Colombia)

Sun 27 June
6.30pm
Death of a Bureaucrat (Cuba)
The Ambassador of India (Colombia)

8.30pm
A Dog's Testament (Brazil)
One Life & Two Trails (Venezuela)

Screening Time by Film Title

The Abalone Rush (Chile, 90 min) :
Sun 20 June 6.30pm / Wed 23 June 6.30pm

The Ambassador of India (Colombia, 85 min):
Fri 25 June 6.30pm / Sun 27 June 6.30pm

Box 507 (Spain, 112 min) :
Thu 24 June 6.30pm / Sat 26 June 8.30pm

Coronación (Chile, 129 min) :
Mon 21 June 6.30pm / Sat 26 June 6.30pm

Death of a Bureaucrat (Cuba, 85 min) :
Sat 19 June 8.30pm / Sun 27 June 6.30pm

A Dog's Testament (Brazil, 104 min) :
Sat 19 June 6.30pm / Sun 27 June 8.30pm

Gold River (Portugal, 135 min) :
Wed 23 June 8.30pm / Sat 26 June 6.30pm

Hail Saint John! (Brazil, 90 min) :
Tue 22 June 6.30pm / Thur 24 June 8.30pm

It Happened in Havana (Cuba, 105 min) :
Sat 19 June 6.30pm / Fri 25 June 8.30pm

María Cano (Colombia, 106 min) :
Wed 23 June 6.30pm / Sat 26 June 8.30pm

Mondays in the Sun (Spain, 113 min):
Tue 22 June 6.30pm / Thur 24 June 8.30pm

Never Too Young to Dream (Mexico, 102 min) :
Sun 20 June 8.30pm / Thur 24 June 6.30pm

One Life & Two Trails (Venezuela, 100 min) :
Fri 25 June 6.30pm / Sun 27 June 8.30pm

Police Woman (Portugal, 85 min) :
Sun 20 June 8.30pm / Wed 23 June 8.30pm

Roraima (Venezuela, 104 min) :
Sun 20 June 6.30pm / Fri 25 June 8.30pm

The Tigress (Ecuador, 80 min) :
Sat 19 June 8.30pm / Mon 21 June 6.30pm

BRAZIL

A Dog's Testament (O Auto da Compadecida)
2000, 104 min
Director: Guel Arraes
Screenplay: G Arraes, Adriana Falcão, João Falcão; from the play by Ariano Suassuna
Photography: Felix Monti
Editor: Paulo Henrique
Cast: Matheus Nachtergaele, Selton Melo, Lima Duarte

This fanciful and naïve fantasy from hinterland Brazil (adapted from Ariano uassuna's play that previously inspired a top-rated Brazilian TV series) follows two poor but resourceful young men, Jack the Cricket (Matheus Nachtergaele) and Chicó (Selton Mello), on their adventures.

Looking for work, Jack and Chicó get a dead-end job working for a mean spirited baker and his cheating wife who feed their beloved pet better than they do the boys. When Jack and Chicó give the dog the awful food the baker meant for them, the poor animal dies, leading Jack to fast-talk the priest into giving the dog a funeral mass. Later on down the road, shy Chicó falls in love with beautiful Rosinha, whose father is the town's wealthiest citizen. While Chicó is too timid to approach her, Jack is able to fool two other of Rosinha's prospective boyfriends into leaving town, leaving the field open for his friend.

And finally, a gang of ruthless criminals invades the town and goes on a murder spree, gunning down Jack alongside other prominent citizens. As Chicó buries his friend, Jack matches wits in the next world with the Devil(Luiz Melo), persuading the Virgin Mary (Fernanda Montenegro) to put in a good word for himself and his friends to Jesus.

The film is amazingly well photographed and the humour is a broad, silly farce that pokes fun at everything from marriage to corruption to murderous bandits. It proved to be a box-office sensation in Brazil, where it became the nation's top-grossing homegrown feature.

The film won 4 Brazilian Movies Great Prizes: Best Director, Best Actor(Matheus Nachtergaele), Best Screenplay, Best Cinema Release, as well as a nomination for Best Film. The film also won awards at the Mar del Plata Film Festival, Recife Film Festival, Miami Latin, Miami Brazilian (Audience Award),Lima Latin, Warsaw Film Festival, Lubljana, Calcutta and Oporto Film Festivals.

Hail Saint John! (Viva São João!)
2002, 90 min
Director: Andrucha Waddington
Screenplay: Emílio Domingues, A Waddington, Quito Ribeiro
Photography: Marcelo Durst
Editor: Quito Ribeiro
Cast: Gilberto Gil, Dominguinhos, Marinês, Alceu Valença, C Gonzaga Sivuca

Hail Saint John! is a colourful musical tour of 19 towns and villages in northeast Brazil on June 2001. The film is a picturesque portrait of the Brazilian semi-arid hinterland, its poor but happy people and how they pay homage and devotion to Saint Anthony, Saint John and Saint Peter during the cycle of festivities which traditionally take place in the month of June.

It is impossible to contain the emotion of witnessing the arrival of Gilber to Gil
in the small town of Exu, birthplace of the late Luiz Gonzaga, the most revered musician, singer and composer of many unforgettable baiões, xotes and xaxados, the typical rhythms of this inhospitable but beautiful landscape.

Gilberto Gil, a worldwide famous singer and songwriter who is the Minister of Culture of Brazil since 2003, guides the viewer on this musical journey, accompanied by very special guest artists such as Dominguinhos, Sivuca, Marinês, Elba Ramalho, Alceu Valença and others.

Hail Saint John! was awarded the prizes of Best Director, Best Photography and Best Soundtrack at the Recife Film Festival 2002. The documentary also won awards from the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Los Angeles Latin Festival,Haifa Film Festival, Rio Film Festival, Florence Festival, Havana Film Festival,Miami Latin, Buenos Aires and St Petersburg Festivals.

CHILE

The Abalone Rush (La Fiebre del Loco)
2000, 90 min
Director: Andrés Wood
Screenplay: Andrés Wood, Gilberto Villarroel, Rene Arcos
Photography: Joan Littin
Editor: Andrea Chignoli
Cast: Emilio Bardi, Luis `Rulo' Margani, Loreto Moya, Tamara Acosta

At the close of the 20th century, a gold rush harking back to a bygone era occurs in Puerto Gala, a small fishing village in south Chile, where the ban on a prized yet endangered abalone is lifted briefly by the authorities. The village becomes a magnet for hordes of divers, fishermen, merchants, businessmen and prostitutes from throughout the country, attracted by the quick riches to be made.

Father Antonio, a parish priest, is intent on both preventing his flock from running wild as well as raising enough cash for a new antenna allowing his`Mother of the Divine Providence' radio station to reach the entire region.The village is also invaded by a small band of hookers commanded by Norma, a singular madam who drives her girls around in a battered bus. This bizarre human landscape is joined by Carlos Maldonado, aka Bible Thumper, a former local diver who returns after a seven-year absence with two aims: buy
abalone supplies for a Japanese firm and see Sonia, an old flame. Just like Bible Thumper, Sonia, now the prosperous owner of the local eatery La Pincoya, will try to skirt the law and pay no heed to the love that summons.

Andrés Wood Montt studied economics at the Catholic University of Chile and is a graduate in cinema studies from New York University. His films include the features Football Stories (1997) and El Desquite (1998), the TV film El Desquite (winner of the 1998 National Television Council Award), a prize winning short Family Reunion.

The Abalone Rush was in competition at the Sundance Festival, and won awards at the 11th Viña del Mar, Trieste, San Sebastian, Cartagena, Madrid,Asunción, Havana, Damascus & Taipei Film Festivals.

Coronación
1999, 129 min
Director: Silvio Caiozzi
Screenplay: Silvio Caiozzi; from the novel by José Donoso
Photography: David Bravo
Editor: Fernando Guariniello
Cast: Julio Jung, María Cánepa, Adela Secall

In an old mansion surrounded by enormous trees lives Doña Elisa de Ábalos, a wealthy old lady with advanced senile dementia, served by two servants who keep the house clean. Her nephew Andrés Ábalos, a seedy, old bachelor, visits her from time to time. Estella, a young peasant girl of 17,comes to the house to care for Doña Elias.

Trapped by emotions he's never felt before, Andrés is ashamed of the powerful attraction he feels for Estella. He can't understand how a man of his education, age and class can behave like a crazy adolescent. His internal conflicts build up until he is forced to face the fact that his life has been a waste. Andrés puts aside his books and starts to hustle the girl. The fearful Estella takes refuge in Mario, a humble but attractive welder.

Silvio Caiozzi won the Best Director award at the Montreal Film Festival for Coronación. He was DOP for several feature films and has directed musicals,comedies, documentaries and variety shows for TV. His film Julio Comienzaen Julio was selected for the Directors Fortnight at Cannes and voted the Best Ibero-American film in Huelva, Spain 1979, and the Best Chilean Film of the Century. Caiozzi has worked closely with novelist José Donoso: they wrote the script for The Moon in the Mirror (La Luna en el Espejo), directed by Caiozzi, which won a dozen international prizes. Caiozzi has served as
president of the Association of Chilean Filmmakers and as jury member at many festivals.

COLOMBIA

The Ambassador of India (El Embajador de la India)
1986, 85 min
Director: Mario Ribero Ferreira
Screenplay: Mario ribero Ferreira
Script: Gilberto Valderrama
Photography: Mario González
Cast: Hugo Gómez, Manuel Pachón, Lucero Gómez, Manuel Currea

Jaime Florez, a cunning and malicious man from the Colombian countryside, visits the city of Neiva and in his boastful manner convinces his two new found companions there that he is a very important person from India, an ambassador, no less. The news of the arrival of the Indian ambassador soon grips the city, and the authorities accept the visit as a challenge to their hospitality. The plot is based on a real life event.

Maria Ribero Ferreira studied film directing in Russia. He showed a strong interest in theatre from a young age. He has been chairman of cinema and TV departments in a number of universities, and has directed five TV series between 1989-1998. His TV film I Am Betty the Ugly One won the Elenco de Television prize for Best Director in 2001.

María Cano
1990, 106 min
Director: Camila Loboguerrero
Screenplay: Camila Loboguerrero, Felipe, Aljure, Luis González
Script: Martha helena Restrepo
Photography: Carlos Sánchez
Cast: María Eugenia Dávilia, Frank Ramírez, Maguso, Diego Vélez

María Cano, a renowned Colombian woman and leader of the social struggle,began her public activities as a poetess and became the most important leader and orator during the 1920s, struggling to improve the life of workers, by calling for the implementation of eight working hours per day and going against the American enclaves in the petroleum and banana industries.

This film won awards for Best Photography at the 30th Cartagena de Indias International Film Festival 1990, Best Actor (Frank Ramírez) in the 7th Bogota Film Festival 1990, and Best Film in the 16th San Antonio Film Festival 1991.

Camila Loboguerrero studied cinematography and art history in Paris, and fine arts at the University of Los Andes de Bogotá. She has undertaken projects on educational, anthropological and documentary films in Paris at various times, as well as TV series at home. She has also served as National Director of Cinematography at the Ministry of Culture in Colombia.

CUBA

Death of a Bureaucrat (La Muerte de un Burócrata)
1966, 85 min, b&w
Director: Tomás Gutiérrez Alea
Script: Alfredo del Cueto, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea
Photography: Ramón Suarez
Editor: Mario Gonzalez
Cast: Salvador Wood, Silvia Planas, Manuel Estanillo

A model factory worker dies accidentally and is buried together with his union
card. But his widow desperately needs the card to claim her pension, and there's a law forbidding exhumation within the first two years of burial. The worker's young nephew starts a hilarious fight against the authorities in order to disinter and rebury his uncle and retrieve the precious document.

This arresting early work by one of Cuba's foremost filmmakers is a black comedy about institutionalised bureaucracy at its most pedantic. It's a surprising piece to have been made in the Cuba of the mid-60s, and most of the laughs come from a Buñuelian sense of absurdity.

Tomás Gutiérrez Alea (`Titón') (1928-1996) was Cuba's greatest and best known director. In his teens he discovered Marxism and became active in Communist youth groups. As a law student at the University of Havana, he made amateur short films. On graduating he studied filmmaking in Rome where he was influenced by neo-realism. On returning to Cuba, he became involved in Fidel Castro's revolutionary movement and was responsible for
making the new regime's first official feature film, Stories of the Revolution(1960), a semi-documentary reconstruction of events leading to the revolution. His reputation peaked with Memories of Underdevelopment(1968), his greatest film and a world favourite in the arthouse circuit, which explores a Cuban intellectual's alienation and soul-searching in post revolution Havana.

It Happened in Havana (Hacerse el Sueco)
2001, 105 min
Cast: Ketty de la Iglesia, Peter Lohmeyer, Enrique Molina, Mijail Mulkay

Masquerading as a Swedish literature professor in Cuba, a thief plots a spectacular jewel heist. He ends up with more than he bargained for when he falls for the daughter of a retired police officer and is practically adopted by her family. Immersed in the colourful sights and sounds of Havana, the seemingly innocent tourist must `play the Swede' and even give an impromptu lecture on Pippi Longstocking before he can commit the near perfect crime. But will his double life cost him the woman he loves?

After swiping the treasure, he hurries to the airport to catch a flight out of the
country, with the ex-police detective on his trail. It's decision time: which jewel
should he choose, the one he's stolen, or the one who's stolen his heart?

ECUADOR

The Tigress (La Tigra)
1990, 80 min
Director: Camilo Luzuriaga
Photography: Rodrigo Cueva, Diego Falconi
Editor: Poncho Álvarez
Cast: Lissette Cabrera, Verónica García, Rossana Iturralde, Wolframico Sinué

Francisca `La Tigra' is a beautiful woman whose voracious appetite for men and power makes her a formidable force on the farm which she runs with two sisters. Francisca discards lovers with abandon and holds her sisters, workers and the authorities in her power as if they were enthralled by some unseen forces of nature.

Rich with visual and sensual imagery, The Tigress is a beautiful film filled with
surreally lovely moments. Luzuriaga uses all sorts of stylistic ploys that are the
equivalent of the magical realism literary tradition of Latin America to look at
female identity through the eyes of Latin American machismo culture. The Tigress is the myth of woman: beautiful, powerful and revered.

Awards: Best Film, 30th Cartagena Film Festival 1990; Best Film, 7th Bogota International Film Festival 1990.

Camilo Luzuriaga has been a photographer since 1971. He taught photography at the School of Arts, Central University of Ecuador from 1982-1987, and is currently professor of photography in the Architectural and Design School, Catholic University. He has made several short films. Of Luzuriaga, it has been said: `Despite the small size of its film industry, Ecuador has produced a world class filmmaker…a unique voice, humorous,
sensuous, fantastic, as well as harshly realistic and satirical.'

MEXICO

Never Too Young to Dream (Atlético San Pancho)
2001, 102 min
Director: Gustavo Loza
Screenplay: Carolina Rivera, Gustavo Loza
Editor: Roberto Bolado
Photography: Salvador `Chava' Cartas
Cast: Héctor Suárez, Plutarco Haza, Erich Harrsh, Luis Felipe Tovar, Lumi
Cavazos

San Francisco del Monte is a small mining town, the birthplace of Mexican soccer, and the seeding ground for national soccer stars for decades. The passion for Mexican soccer died here, leaving only memories of that period.Now no one seems interested in kicking the ball, except Toño, the son of an ex-soccer player, who has received a ball "from nowhere", and whose mind is made up to revive the sport in his town, together with his buddies and the school janitor.

Lumi Cavazos, Héctor Suárez, Plutarco Haza and Luis Felipe Tovar star in this delightful family film about a group of children and their wish to play and excel at soccer. Will victory come to the vecindad for this group of loveable urchins as they square-off against the flashy and arrogant rich kids' team? Is their new coach up to the task? A "Bad News Bears" for soccer, and a feel good movie for all ages. Director Gustavo Loza's student film El Club de los Cuarenta showed at the Cine Estuduantil Film Festival back in 1995!

PORTUGAL

Gold River (O Rio do Ouro)
1998, 135 min
Director: Paulo Rocha
Screenplay: Paulo Rocha, Cláudia Tomáz
Photography: Elso Roque
Editor: Edgar Feldman, Cláudia Tomaz, Paulo Rocha
Cast: Lima Duarte, Isabel Ruth, Joana Bárcia, João Cardoso, Felipe Cochofel

Its creators describe Gold River as `a blood-stained musical', which is pretty apt. Not that the actors burst into song, but the melodic strains of northern Portugal are at the very heart of this balladic, hugely atmospheric, beautifully shot movie, set in 1960 on the banks of the great River Douro, the Gold River. This is a place where fierce passions are aroused and murderous deeds committed. A dark and heavy mountainous backdrop only adds to the air of foreboding. Scripted, directed and produced by 63-year-old Portuguese director Paulo Rocha, Gold River (his sixth feature) is an exploration of his own memories of the place, memories which he says have acquired a `mystical aura'.

Gold River tells of a bloody crime of jealousy committed by middle-aged redhead Carolina, played by Isabel Ruth. Portuguese diva Ruth appeared in the director's 1963 debut, Green Years, and in Gold River makes a splendid return to the Rocha roost as the woman who combines her work as a railway worker with a keen interest in beekeeping. The sinister element of this hobby is revealed in the movie's sticky conclusion.

Carolina is passionate and boundlessly imaginative, but is bored with her marriage to a dredger captain, Antonio, played by the iconic Brazilian actor Lima Duarte. Her delusions of grandeur lead her to harbour murderous thoughts towards her young niece, the honeyed Melita (Joana Barcia). The arrival of visionary gold salesman Ze (Joao Cardoso), a Midas-like figure, sets Carolina's passions racing and gives her the excuse to do her dark deed in a bid to escape from her dredger's drudgery.

Gold River was flowing through Rocha's thoughts for 35 years. `I'm a direct or who spends a lot of time prowling around places, trying to sniff out atmosphere, stories and the ghosts of all things past,' says Rocha. Having released Gold River, the eclectic Rocha has turned to another type of musical,featuring, according to the director, `the politicians and transvestites of the Lisbon of the 21st century.'

Police Woman (A Mulher Polícia)
2003, 85 min
Director: Joaquim Sapinho
Screenplay: Joaquim Sapinho
Photography: Jacques Loiseleux, Miguel Sales Lopes
Editor: Manuela Viegas
Cast: Amélia Corôa, Ludovic Videira, Maria Silva, Miguel Romeira

Distracted after the death of her husband, Tania fails to notice her son Rato is
hanging out with a bad crowd until the police arrest him for vandalising his school. She frees him from custody, and with his young girlfriend Liliana in tow, they leave their northern Portuguese village for the sanctuary of Lisb on. But their journey (beautifully shot, deliberately paced) is punctuated by violence, finaally reaching a climax as wrenching as it is mysterious.

Awards: Best Film and Best Photography, 6th European Cinema Festival, Leece, Italy, 2003

SPAIN

Box 507 (La Caja 507)
2002, 112 min
Director: Enrique Urbizu
Screenplay: Enrique Urbizu, Michel Gaztambide
Photography: Carles Gusi
Cast: Antonio Resines, José Coronado, Goya Toledo, Dafne Fernández

Modesto, an honest, hard-working man, directs the local branch of a bank on the Costa del Sol. Robbers blow open the safe-deposit boxes in his branch and leave him trapped inside the chamber that held them. One of them is Box 507 and its contents reveal that the death of his daughter some years ago had not been an accident.

Rafael, a corrupt and unscrupulous ex-policeman, must also recover what was stolen from that box, for as long as the missing documents are in other hands, his life is worth nothing, and so he begins the desperate search to get them back. Both are involved in a frantic race, with different goals, in which their destinies entwine. A race with rules that Rafael knows well and which Modesto will have to learn if justice is to be done. However, the latter has one advantage: nobody even takes him into account, no one knows what he knows.

Awards: Goya 2002 (Spain) for Best Production Design; Philadelphia 2002(USA): Main Jury Prize

Mondays in the Sun (Los Lunes al Sol)
2002, 113 min
Director: Fernando Léon
Screenplay: Fernando Léon, Ignacio del Moral
Photography: Alfredo Mayo
Cast: Javier Bardem, Luis Tosar, José Ángel Egido, Nieve de Medina

A city on the northern coast which turned its back on the countryside long ago and surrounded itself with industries which forced it to grow disproportionately, pushing and shoving, fed it with immigration and workers, and painted a horizon of chimneys, of problems and hopes, of future uprooting.

A group of men who walk its hilly streets every day, looking for life's emergency exits. Long term fear, people who perform a balancing act at the end of the month and at the beginning too, performers without a net and without an audience, without applause at the end, who daily walk the tightrope of precarious employment, who prop up their existence with a scaffolding of hope, and convert their few happy moments into trenches,conversation, routine, as if the shipwreck from which they daily try to save
themselves weren't theirs, while they talk of their exploits and laugh, at everything and nothing in particular, full of hope, relaxed, on a Monday morning in the sun.

This film speaks boldly, loudly and honestly abut the plaintive existence of a group of jobless Spanish shipyard workers. What this study of working class men lacks in depth of story it makes up for in depth of character as it moves through bitter, sweet, poignant and humorous moments with sincerity and honesty – all drenched in masculinity.

Awards: Goya 2002 (Spain): Best Film, Best Direction and Best Actor; San Sebastian Film Festival 2002: Concha de Oro for Best Film; FIPRESCI Prize; =

VENEZUELA

One Life and Two Trails (Una Vida y Dos Mandados)
1997, 100 min
Director: Alberto Arvelo
Screenplay: Alberto Arvelo, Freddy Sosa
Photography: Andres Agusti
Editor: Cacho Briceno
Cast: Jordan Montilla, Nelson Ramirez, John Marquez, German Mendieta,
Ramona Perez, Bernardino Angel, Nerio Zerpa

Dreaming about the death of his mother whom he has not seen in years, Romer returns to the mountains where he grew up, and is led towards a heartbreaking silent encounter where the past returns in waves. Filmed in the Venezuelan Andes, this multiple award-winning film (which won acclaim at numerous international film festivals) portrays the life of a peasant community which since the 17th century has been trying to preserve its customs,language and dignity.

Awards: People's Award for Best Picture & Best Cinematography,Venezuelan Film Festival 1997; Best Script, Latin American Film Festival,New York, 1997; Best Picture, Best Director, Best Music, Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction, Caracas Municipal Awards, Venezuela; Audience Favourite Milwaukee Latin American Film Series 1998.

Alberto Arvelo graduated in art history from the University of the Andes and made his directorial debut in 1983 with The Song of the Mountains, adapted from Herman Hesse's works. One Life & Two Trails was the official Venezuelan entry for the 1997 Oscars. In addition to making films, Arvelo has written and directed several plays.

Roraima
1994, 104 min
Director: Carlos Oteyza
Screenplay: Carlos Oteyza, Yajaira Gonzalez, Oscar Lucien
Photographer: Hernan Toro
Editor: Freddy Veliz
Cast: Isabel Dussinova, Daniel Lopez, Stephen Ellery, Lupe Barrado, Hugo
Marquez

This Venezuelan drama follows the quest of a woman seeking her brother in the dangerous jungle of Roraima, an area forbidden to visitors as it is under international dispute. The only inhabitants are outlaws and outcasts from society. Despite the dangers, Carlota must honour her father's wishes and search for her younger brother, who is suspected of murdering a woman several years ago. The last place the brother was seen was near Roraima. In her quest, Carlota encounters a variety of eccentric and suspicious characters. The jungle residents must deal with a corrupt, domineering army unit.

Enquiries - Wong Tuck Cheong
Hp 012-2255136
email wongtc@help.edu.my

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