The Oscar nominated Peruvian film, THE MILK OF SORROW, by Claudia Llosa will open at the Cinema Village in New York on Friday, August 27, and at the Music Hall in Los Angeles on September 3. Other cities will follow.
Fausta (Magaly Solier) suffers from “the milk of sorrow”, an illness transmitted through mother’s milk by women who have been violated or mistreated during the war of terror in Peru. The war has ended, but Fausta’s life is a reminder of it because “the illness of fear” stole her soul. Now, her mother’s sudden death forces her to confront her fears and the secret that is hidden inside of her: she has inserted a potato into her vagina to serve as a protective shield that repels disgusting intruders. THE MILK OF SORROW is the story of a search for re-awakening, a journey from fear to freedom.
The director, Claudia Llosa, states: THE MILK OF SORROW is a metaphor for breakdown. A repressed country that can only express itself via its unconscious: its myths, its fears and traumas. The body of a bleeding woman expresses emptiness that needs to be filled, anguish that needs to rest, terror of coming across something different, of losing control. We live in an indecisive, repressed country whose main informer is its body. But memory is not the only aim of the battle. How does the process of burying a painful past function? Does more memory require more forgiveness and reconciliation? An effort for forgiveness is required, as well as one to preserve the history of an oral culture that has been repressed by an officially imposed history.
Claudia Llosa Bueno (Peruvian – Italian) was born in 1976 in Lima, Peru. She studied Communication at the University of Lima (1998), then she optained a Masters Degree in Film and TV at the Superior School of Arts and Spectacles TAI, Madrid, Spain (2001). Claudia began working in advertising and television for Peruvian and foreign companies. Later on she started her own production company in Perú, Vela Films (velafilms.com.pe) and directed her first feature film, MADEINUSA (2006).
MADEINUSA was premiered in the Official Selection of Sundance Film Festival and at the Rotterdam Film Festival. The film has won more than twenty awards in different prestigious international festivals, including the International Critics Award (Fipresci) in Rotterdam Film Festival, Best Film in Lima Film Festival, Best Film in Malaga Latin-American Festival (Spain), Sicca award for the Best Latin American film in Mar del Plata Film Festival (Argentina), “El Sol” award for the Best Actress in Festivalissimo – Montreal Festival 2007 (Canada), among others. Also, MADEINUSE was selected to represent Peru in the “Oscar” award 2007. MADEINUSA has been released in more than 20 territories all over the world.
Claudia Llosa currently resides in Barcelona. THE MILK OF SORROW (La Teta Asustada) is her second feature film.