BEAST OF CARDO

SVA Theatre (Beatrice) – 7:45pm
Saturday, October 17th

103 min | Drama | Dominican Republic | 2014
Special Selection – Out of Competition
By Virginia Sanchez Navarro

SYNOPSIS:

Bestia de Cardo tells the story of Moira, a wealthy, Dominican young woman, who is forced to return permanently to her asphyxiating hometown, Cardo, and to the double-faced society that she had left behind.

Haunted by her history of mental delusions, the ill-tempered but spineless Moira goes back to her old routine of following her parents’ orders and aiding them to regain the family’s honor, which has of late been dubious, soon enough so that they can still host their upcoming traditional new year’s eve party. Instead, after a dinner with her cousin and her cousin’s husband, she quickly makes a crucial mistake that ends up endangering hers and her family’s reputation even more.

It all seems lost until she starts an unlikely friendship with an enigmatic tailor, Hermes, who tells her of supernatural ways in which she could flee the town. As they put their plans in action, Moira and Hermes find themselves surprisingly drawn to one another but their reverie is stopped short as they quickly learn just how unforgiving the people of Cardo are and how distant the possibility of ever escaping seems.

Bestia de Cardo is a melancholy, fantastical and sensual study of social pressure, of the loneliness that can prevail within a broken family and of the unforeseen hope that can come with the beginning of a new friendship.

DIRECTOR’S BIOGRAPHY:

Born in Santiago, Dominican Republic, actress and up-and-coming filmmaker Virginia Sánchez Navarro has worked in theatre since age 15. She trained in New York City at the Lee Strasberg Institute and since then has been splitting her time between films and Off-Broadway productions. She is the author of short stories and poems published in Dominican newspapers. She has the weekly column La Cuarta Pared in the art section Ventana, of Listín Diario newspaper. In 2012 Virginia received the Personalidad Cultural Award (Cultural Personality Award), granted by the Secretary of State for Culture of the Dominican Republic, for her work onscreen and on the stage. Bestia de Cardo (Austin Film Festival 2014, Cinequest Film Festival 2015, Festival de Cine Mix Mexico 2015) is her first feature film as a director.