“Itzia, tango and cacao”, directed and starring Flora Martínez, the actress who revealed herself with “Rosario Tijeras” and acted with numerous international filmmakers
Rosary Scissors She was a sexy, pleasant and lethal girl. Renowned hitwoman for the Colombian mafia, she had a reputation for saying goodbye to her victims with a nice kiss on the mouth. “No one is denied a kiss”he said, before shooting them. A movie was made about her, then a series.
Whoever played her in the film also seemed sexy, pleasant, very pleasant, and, in business, triumphant. That was her consecration, it allowed her to step forward as an actress, also a singer, playwright, businesswoman, and now even a film director. “Itzia, tango and cocoa” It is his first realization.
Who are we talking about? Of Flora Martínez, Born to a Colombian father and a Canadian mother in Montreal, raised between Canada and Colombia with studies in New York and Madrid, a supporting figure in an old episode of “Law and order” and some movies Alan Rudoph, Luis Ospina, Bigas Luna and others, growing attraction of Caribbean series and soap operas, co-star of the Spanish “Love songs at Lolita’s Club”of Vicente Aranda, “Art of roubar” (Brazilian thieves after a Van Gogh lost in the Argentine countryside), “Brief history of long traditions” (Italian essay on the betrayal of multinationals to developing countries) and another Spanish one, “Yours always”where she hooked up with the film’s musician, the Uruguayan José Reinoso.
And why do we tell this? because now Kingdom He is her husband, father of her daughter and also co-producer, composer, screenwriter and editor of her directorial debut, “Itzia, tango and cocoa”. It is an innocent fantasy, which takes time to gain strength, where a pretty, friendly and more or less deaf-mute girl becomes enthusiastic about music that only she hears, as if someone were calling her and that could improve her life and that of others. his. In fact, something has improved since they changed illegal cultivation to cocoa cultivation, for the tranquility and moderate prosperity of the town.
That’s interesting, and the filming locations, San Vicente de Chúcuri, the cocoa capital of Colombia, and Zipaquira, are beautiful and look good on camera. The tone of the work is peaceful, the bandoneon music sounds sweet and soft, in swings that seem to search or evoke something that we may end up knowing, the protagonist is a pleasure to see and she really knows how to act. All of which makes us forgive a little the naivety of its minimal “magical realism”, enjoy it for a while and even get genuinely excited when something is finally revealed.
In a key character, Gerardo Romano He appears there as a musician who arrived in 1986 with his Rubén Nowak Tango Trío and now we find him again running a business called Anticuario Montevideo. A couple of doubts: does that name have anything to do with that of a tango and bachata teacher who walks around these parts? And where does the name Itzia come from? We know something: Kingdom He can’t handle his genius. On the soundtrack he put “The cumparsita”, of Matos RodríguezUruguayan, and some themes of Gardel.
“Itzia, tango and cocoa” (Colombia-Uruguay, 2023); Dir.: Flora Martínez; Int.: Flora Martínez, José Acosta, Gerardo Romano, Julián Díaz.
Source: Ambito
