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“Pelo Malo” (Bad Hair), by Mariana Rondón, opens in cinemas

The Venezuelan film was a winner at the San Sebastián Film Festival and opens in cinemas on the 14th of March

Pelo malo (Bad Hair) was the big surprise at last September’s San Sebastián Film Festival, winning the Golden Shell, or Best Film Award by a unanimous decision by the jury. The Venezuelan film, written and directed by Mariana Rondón, tells the story of Junior, a nine-year-old boy with, as he himself calls it, obstinate curly hair, which he wants to straighten for a school photograph in order to look like a popular singer, a fact that brings him in to confrontation with his mother, a young widow on the dole who is beginning to experience feelings of rejection towards the increasingly evident signs of homosexual orientation in her son.

The low-budget film functions as a drama with occasional touches of black comedy and is a cross between “social” film, influenced by certain style of neorealism, and a protest against collective intolerance and the situation of the country as a whole.

Pelo malo opens in cinemas on the 14th of March.

Publication date: Monday, 10 March 2014
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