October / Octubre
2010, 35 mm, Color (16th Festival on Wheels)
Director(s)
Daniel Vega, Diego Vega
Country(s)
Peru
Genre(s)
Other
Script
Daniel Vega, Diego Vega
Photography
Fergan Chávez-Ferrer
Editing
Gianfranco Annichini
Music
Animation
Cast
Bruno Odar, Gabriela Velásquez, Carlos Gassols, María Carbajal
Production
Maretazo Cine, Daniel Vega, Diego Vega
Distribution
UMedia, Margherita Mangione, 14 rue du 18 Août 93100 Montreuil France T +33 1 4870 4655 | margherita@umedia.fr | www.umedia.fr
Awards
Plot
“October”, known as the purple month in Lima, attracts throngs of the faithful to Peru’s capital.
Processions celebrating the city’s patron saint, The Lord of Miracles, take over the streets as
Peru’s unique image of Christ is paraded from church to church by purple-smocked devotees.
Brothers and co-directors Diego and Daniel Vega use this emblematic month in their native city
for their impressive debut, October. Clemente is a moneylender whose personal relationships
are always quantified. Money is his guiding compass and sets the stakes for both the people
he lends to and the prostitutes he beds. It’s a lonely existence that is turned inside-out when he
returns home to an apparent break-in, only to discover an abandoned baby left in his charge.
Austerely shot with careful attention to framing, October signals the arrival of a distinct cinematic
voice from Latin America. The Vega brothers compose a moving and charming film, balancing
themes of loneliness and disconnection with an absurd comic tone that steers the narrative away
from melodrama. With their wonderful use of religious symbolism and desperate situations, the
Vega brothers present a fresh vision of their native Lima, a city that seems to pray, collectively,
for new hope.
Diana Sanchez