“Hedy Crilla, teacher of actors” is the debut film by Luciana Murujosa that investigates the life of the actress and educator who was a breakthrough in Argentine acting and which will be presented in its avant-première this Monday at the Buenos Aires Cultural Center 25 de Mayo at 20.
“Crilla is fundamental to understanding how we all act and in 10 years as an actress I had never heard her name. And since I am a lover of documentaries and I am also a film director, so I didn’t want that story to be lost. I think it came at the right time because I interviewed people who are no longer here and who told very valuable things,” Murujosa told Télam.
The premiere will also feature the music of the live film composed by Lucio Bruno-Videla for a string quartet (piano-viola-violin-cello) and the vocalization of a soprano, based on a lied by Franz Schubert, inspired in the passage “Margaret at the spinning wheel”, from “Faust” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
“When I started looking for music to see what went with the film, I couldn’t find anything. Parallel to this, I also needed to find Margaret’s prayer that Hedy recited. A friend told me that it must be ‘Margarita at the spinning wheel’, which gave rise to to a Schubert lied and there I found the music for the film,” added the director.
The film narrates the life of the actress born in Vienna in 1898 and who, persecuted by Nazism for her Jewish origin, migrated to Argentina, where she became a theater teacher and director. The film also has impeccable archival material and testimonies from Agustín Alezzo, Augusto Fernandes, Helena Tritek, Luisa Kuliok, Cora Roca and Pochi Ducase, among others.
“I studied film directing, but at the same time I took acting classes, so in ten years I was working in different places. Looking for directing courses, Agustín Alezzo appears giving a seminar after many years. In his classes, he always mentioned Crilla, in how she had influenced him and his generation,” he said.
However, Alezzo’s words led to a labyrinth that always culminated in Hedy Crilla. Her ex-partner constantly mentioned her and on one of her birthdays, in which she was debating how hard the return usually is, director Julio Ordano stated: “La Crilla said, if they cry it’s because they’re no good.”
Hedy Crilla died in 1984, leaving behind a life that recognizes her, among other things, as the person who introduced the Stanislavski Method, adapting it to her experience, who trains a large number of actors, directors and teachers who propagate her legacy, thus revolutionizing the style of acting.
Source: Ambito
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
