In a small zoo, neighbours from opposing social classes celebrate the arrival of the hippopotamus Zafari. Ana, Edgar and their son Bruno watch it all unfold from the window of their crumbling upper-class building. In the midst of food, water and electricity shortages, the woman salvages food from abandoned flats, while the family finds a way to escape. But strange sounds in the corridors make her more and more terrified. In a ruthless world, Zafari is the only one who still has enough to eat.

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This is the synopsis of Zafari [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], the new feature by Venezuelan filmmaker Mariana Rondón, whose previous works have been distributed worldwide and have been showered with international awards. For example, Bad Hair [+leggi anche:
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trailer
intervista: Mariana Rondón
scheda film] (2013) won the Golden Shell at San Sebastián, the Silver Alexander at Thessaloniki and the Astor at Mar del Plata, among many other accolades. Zafari is about to be presented in the Horizontes Latinos strand of the 72nd San Sebastián Film Festival after being selected as a project at this same gathering’s Coproduction Forum in 2019. At present, Rondón is co-directing La noche de San Juan with Marité Ugás (with whom she previously co-directed the 2000 movie At Midnight and a Half).

“I decided to recount Zafari like a dystopian fable. The arrival of the hippo in this apparently idyllic place gradually brings to light the residents’ most basic instincts: hunger, desire and fear. Life becomes increasingly grotesque, and they are overcome by dubious morals. We hint that the viewers should see themselves reflected in this mirror, while they accompany our characters as they observe other people’s lives, feeling a combination of fascination, terror and excitement,” explains Rondón. “In Latin America, the recurrence of terminal crises forces us to experience extreme situations over and over again. My inspiration came from a news story from 2015 about a strange series of events that took place in a Caracas zoo. As we pondered this, perplexed, we wondered how we could have got to this point. We leave the questions open-ended, while the images flow by,” she sums up.

Shot in Lima and the Dominican Republic, the movie stars Chilean actress Daniela Ramírez, Venezuela’s Francisco Denis and Samantha Castillo, and young Peruvian thesp Varek La Rosa.

Written by the director herself together with Marité Ugás, Zafari is a feature produced by Sudaca Films (Peru), Paloma Negra (Mexico), Klaxon Cultura Audiovisual (Brazil), Still Moving (France) and Quijote Films (Chile), in co-production with Selene Films (República Dominicana) and Artefactos Films (Venezuela). Its international sales have been entrusted to Spain’s Feelsales.

Check out our exclusive poster below: