4/5
Friday
19:30
Old Court Building

Director: Pablo Larrain
Duration: 108 minutes
Languages: Spanish and parts in French
Subtitles: Chinese and English

It is 1948 and the Cold War has reached Chile. In congress, Senator Pablo Neruda (Luis Gnecco) accuses the government of betraying the Communist Party and is swiftly impeached by President Gonzalez Videla (Alfredo Castro). Police Prefect Oscar Peluchonneau (Gael Garcia Bernal) is assigned to arrest the poet. Neruda tries to flee the country with his wife, the painter Delia del Carril (Mercedes Morán), but they are forced into hiding. Inspired by the dramatic events of his new life as a fugitive, Neruda writes his epic collections of poems, Canto General. Meanwhile, in Europe, the legend of the poet hounded by the police grows, and artists led by Pablo Picasso clamor of Neruda’s freedom. Neruda, however, sees his struggle with his nemesis Peluchonneau as an opportunity to reinvent himself. He plays with the inspector, leaving clues designed to make their game of cat-and-mouse more dangerous, more intimate. In this story of a persecuted poet and his implacable adversary, Neruda recognises his own heroic possibilities: a chance to become both a symbol for liberty and a literary legend.

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Categories: Group C (Not suitable for audiences under 18 years of age, restricted to audiences aged

Guest Speaker

Un Sio San

Un Sio San is a poet and writer. She has attained dual Bachelor’s degree from Peking University, in Chinese and Literature and Art (Scriptwriting & Directing for Film and TV), as well as dual Master’s degree in East Asian Studies and Asia-Pacific Studies from the University of Toronto. She has won the Henry Luce Foundation Chinese Poetry Award (U.S.A.), the inaugural New Star – People’s Literature Prize of Poetry (China), Macao Literary Award, and a nomination for Haizi Poetry Prize, among others. In 2014, she was the poet-in-residence at the Vermont Studio Center (U.S.A.). She has been invited to many international poetry festivals in Portugal, Malaysia, Taiwan and Hong Kong. She was the lyricist of Macao’s first original chamber operaA Fragrant Dream. Her poetry collections include Exile in the Blossom Time, Wonderland, Evolution of Love, Song of Migrant People, Bitter Lotus Seeds, besides two Chinese-English bilingual poetry collections: Here and Naked Picnic.