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Camila

Screening on Film
Directed by María Luisa Bemberg.
With Susú Pecoraro, Imanol Arias, Héctor Alterio.
Argentina, 1984, 35mm, color, 107 min.
Spanish with English subtitles.
Print source: HFA

F is for Forbidden Love

Set in 1840s Buenos Aires, Camila chronicles the ill-fated romance between a Jesuit priest and the daughter of a wealthy landowner. Fearing reprisal from both their families and the leaders of the Church, the young lovers flee the city and decide to run a children’s school in a small village. Based on actual events, the film strikes a curious balance between wildly melodramatic moments and darkly comic realism. Bemberg’s passionate narrative reflects the oppression both of the Rosas-era government of the mid-nineteenth century, which tyrannically upheld the order of Church and State, and of Argentina’s contemporary reigning military dictatorship in the 1980s.

Part of film series

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Cinema A–Z: Treasures from the Harvard Film Archive