In 1971, the graphic and advertising artist Juan Fresán set out to film the story of Orélie Antoine de Tounens, the delirious Frenchman who 100 years earlier had proclaimed himself ‘King of Patagonia and Araucanía’, with his own constitution, currency and ministers. The film, titled "New France," was left unfinished, first due to lack of funds and then because its author had to go into exile. If the story is familiar to many today, this is because in the '80s Carlos Sorín made' The King's movie ', inspired by that frustrated shoot, in which he had worked as a cinematographer. In 2004, Fresán contacted Turturro to help him rescue the preserved film. Fresán died in that same year, but Turturro decided to retake the trace of that truncated film, exhuming unpublished materials, returning to their original settings and gathering testimonies, to illuminate the two stories - one within the other - that make up this true story, more strange and fascinating than any fiction.
The film tells how in 1970 a group of Argentine filmmakers - including Alberto Fischerman, Rafael Filippelli, Julio Ludueña, Miguel Bejo, Jorge Cedrón, Dody Scheuer and Luis Zanger - decided to make a short film each in one night. The occasion is perfect to describe the atmosphere of the '70s, the fever in which militants and publicists lived, the clash between art and politics. Includes fragments of the films The Players vs. Ángeles Caídos (Fischerman, 1969), Shadows (John Cassavetes, 1959), Made in U.S.A. (Jean-Luc Godard, 1966), L'eclisse (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1962), The Hour of the Furnaces (Pino Solanas & Octavio Getino, 1968), Tire dié (Fernando Birri, 1960), Alianza para el progreso (Ludueña, 1971), La civilización está haciendo masa y no deja oír (Ludueña, 1974) and La pieza de Franz (Fischerman, 1974).
Carlos Sorín is an Argentine film director and screenwriter born in Buenos Aires in 1944. He has directed films such as La película del rey (1985), La era del ñandú (1986), Eterna sonrisa de New Jersey (1989) Historias mínimas (2002), Bombón - el perro (2004) and El camino de San Diego (2006). In three of them he has been assisted by his son, the composer Nicolás Sorín, who has been involved in the musical production. For his work he has received more than 20 national and international awards, among them the Konex Award - Merit Diploma 1991 as one of the 5 best Film Directors of the decade 1981-1990 in Argentina.
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