FROM AFAR (Desde Allá) the feature debut from Venezuelan writer-director Lorenzo Vigas, which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and multidisciplinary artist Laurie Anderson’s deeply personal, lyrical and compelling film HEART OF A DOG, have been added to the lineup for the 2015 BFI London Film Festival.
FROM AFAR (Desde Allá) will screen in the Festival’s Dare strand.
In the film, wealthy middle-aged Armando (Alfredo Castro) lures young men to his home with money. He doesn’t want to touch, only watch from a strict distance. He also follows an elderly businessman with whom he seems to have had a traumatic relationship. Armando’s first encounter with street thug Elder (Luis Silva) is violent, but this doesn’t discourage the lonely man’s fascination with the tough handsome teenager. Financial interest keeps Elder visiting him regularly and an unexpected intimacy emerges. But Armando’s haunted past looms large, and Elder commits the ultimate act of affection on Armando’s behalf. Set in Caracas’ chaotic lower class communities, Vigas’ turbulent story reveals the complex bond between two men worlds apart.
HEART OF A DOG will screen in the Festival’s Love strand. HEART OF A DOG is Laurie Anderson’s cinematic journey through love, death and language. Centering on Anderson’s beloved rat terrier Lolabelle, who died in 2011, HEART OF A DOG is a personal essay that weaves together childhood memories, video diaries, philosophical musings on data collection, surveillance culture and the Buddhist conception of the afterlife, and heartfelt tributes to the artists, writers, musicians and thinkers who inspire her.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ly_3i-jyes
Fusing her own witty, inquisitive narration with original violin compositions, hand-drawn animation, 8mm home movies and artwork culled from exhibitions past and present, Anderson creates a hypnotic, collage-like visual language out of the raw materials of her life and art, examining how stories are constructed and told – and how we use them to make sense of our lives.
The 2015 BFI London Film Festival runs from Wednesday October 7 to Sunday October 18 , 2015.