Zama

Zama is a 2017 Argentine period drama film directed by Lucrecia Martel, based on the 1956 novel of the same name by Antonio di Benedetto. It premiered at the 74th Venice International Film Festival. It was also screened in the Masters section at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. On 29 September 2017, the Argentine Academy of Cinematography Arts and Sciences chose the film as the national entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards and Best Iberoamerican Film at the 32nd Goya Awards. In 2022, it was selected as the 19th greatest film of Argentine cinema in a poll organized in 2022 by the specialized magazines La vida útil, Taipei and La tierra quema, which was presented at the Mar del Plata International Film Festival. Plot In the late 18th century Don Diego de Zama is a magistrate in a remote outpost in Argentina. His wife and children are far away and he longs to be assigned to a post in Lerma, a change he believes is imminent. The town is plagued by rumours of the feats of Vicuña Porto, a man who robs and rapes at will and who others are always claiming to have met and defeated. Uninterested by the gossip, Zama spends his time trying to seduce the wealthy, married Spanish noblewoman Luciana Piñares de Luenga, who rebuffs him. At work, he comes into conflict with an assistant magistrate, Ventura Prieto, when the latter objects to the enslavement of indigenous people. The conflict is exacerbated by the discovery that Prieto has had more success with Luciana than he. After the two come to blows, the governor deports the junior functionary — to Lerma.