SEXUAL DEPENDENCY [DEPENDENCIA SEXUAL]

MONDAY 27 OCTOBER AT 9:30PM UGC SHAFTESBURY AVE SCREEN 1

Country Bolivia/USA R/T 105 mins Format DV Dir Rodrigo Bellott Prods Ara Katz, Rodrigo Bellott S'play Rodrigo Bellott, Lenelle N Moise DoP Rodrigo Bellott, Daryn DeLuco Cast Alexandra Aponte, Roberto Urbina, Jorge Antonio Saavedra, Ronica Reddick, Mathew Guida P/S Cinemavault E nickjensen@cinemavault.com

This is not only the first Bolivian digital film in history, but the first film by a Bolivian since 1997, and the first ever co-production between Bolivia and the USA. The film contains five portraits of disenchanted adolescence intersecting at strange angles. Each of the stories ends with a sex scene, which progress in violence from a seduction at a party to a gang rape in the last segment. Appearances by characters from preceding segments give the disparate scenarios a certain cohesion. Each story also finishes in front of a billboard which shows a half-naked pre-coital man and woman. The billboard remained in Santa Cruz for a month, creating immense media interest, and sparking the hopes of a new Bolivian cinema. Bellot firmly sides with the victims in his tales of disenchantment, although he offers no solution to the problems of the aggressors he portrays, other than to suggest that they are the victims of their society. He feels equally at home in the States as in his native Bolivia, and he succeeds admirably in contrasting the two societies.

The film is shot with two digital cameras, and the entire film has a split screen, allowing for different angles on the same scene, and Bellot has succeeded in drawing out admirable performances from the amateur cast. EG

Rodrigo Bellot, from Santa Cruz, Bolivia is well known there for his theatre and TV work. In 1999 he was honoured as Outstanding Young Man of Bolivia. He is a graduate of Ithaca College's MFA in Film. His 15 shorts and documentaries have screened internationally. This is his debut feature.