108 - Cuchillo de palo
(Cuchillo de palo)

Renate Costa is back in Asuncion, the capital that « turns its back to the river. » This reunion like the first night shots of the film is marked by melancholy. By stages, the filmmaker revives some familiar landmarks before investing the frame personally, gradually creeping in among the shadows of a more private story. The path she follows quickly link the intimate journey to a more political dimension. Rodolfo Costa had decided not to become a blacksmith like his father and brothers but a dancer. Renate barely knew her deceased uncle Rodolfo, the one relegated to the back of the family’s home-movies. In the 80s, under Alfredo Stroessner’s dictatorship, as 108 other homosexuals, he is listed, arrested, humiliated and tortured. While investigating into this man’s life not only through her owns father’s words but also among his friends, transvestites, prostitutes, homosexuals, the movie unveils other stories kept under seal by the dictatorship and a society’s prevailing morality. And since no movie can ever really win the ongoing battle against history, Cuchillo de Palo / 108 intimately reflects an impenetrable dialogue between a daughter and her father. JB