• The festival will screen the film adaptation of his 1974 novel ‘La tregua’, which was nominated to an Oscar
• The tribute is completed with the screening of ‘El lado oscuro del corazón’, which includes several of his poems

This year is the centenary of the uruguayan poet, writer, dramatst and periodist Mario Benedetti. His literary work was object of various film adaptations. Cinema Jove, programmed this year from the 5th to the 9th of December, gives a homage to this referential figure in the latin-american litreature with the screening of two movies inspired in his work.

Cinema Jove has programmed the 1974 version of the homonymous novel ‘La tregua’, directed by Sergio Renán and starring Héctor Alterio and Ana María Picchio. This brief fiction is considered the first uruguayan best-seller. The plot shows the story of a widower in his fifties that initiates a complex relationship with a girl which has the same age as his daughter. Written in the form of a diary, it has been translated to  thirty languages. Even though there have been different adaptations to theatre, movies and TV, the one you will be able to watch at Cinema Jove is the first Argentinian production ever nominated to an Oscar.

The other film that will complete the cycle will be ‘El lado oscuro del corazón’ (Eliseo Subiela, 1992). Darío Grandinetti plays the main role in this romantic movie structured upon several poems by Mario Benedetti, Oliverio Girondo and Juan Gelmán. The movie includes a cameo of Benedetti himself, who interprets a german sailer that recites the poem ‘Corazón coraza’ in german to a prostitute in a cabaret. In the cast we’ll also find Nacha Guevara, who finds himself between the musicians that have sung the verses of Benedetti.

The prolific member of the so-called “Generación del 45” is responsible of more than 80 titles in which he addressed all genres: novel, essay, story, play, poetry and journalism. The writer has been considered essential to various generations, touched by his sensitive way of approaching simple but significant subjects.