A Place in the World (1992)

Mario and Ana, in voluntary exile from Buenos Aires, live in a remote Argentine valley with their 12-year-old son Ernesto. Mario runs a school and a wool cooperative; Ana, a doctor, heads a... See full summary »

Director:

Adolfo Aristarain

Writers:

Adolfo Aristarain (story), Adolfo Aristarain

Stars:

José Sacristán, Federico Luppi, Leonor Benedetto

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 16 wins & 6 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
José Sacristán	...	Hans
Federico Luppi	...	Mario
Leonor Benedetto	...	Nelda
Cecilia Roth	...	Ana
Rodolfo Ranni	...	Andrada
Hugo Arana	...	Zamora
Gaston Batyi	...	Ernesto
Lorena del Río	...	Luciana
Mario Alarcón	...	Juan
Juan José Ghisalberti	...	Don Gregorio
Hugo Pertoni	...	Hombre 1
Eduardo Arias	...	Hombre 2
Roberto Rizotti	...	Cura
Marcos Woinsky	...	Locutor Marcos Woinsky
Santiago Chade	...	Maquinista tren

Storyline

Mario and Ana, in voluntary exile from Buenos Aires, live in a remote Argentine valley with their 12-year-old son Ernesto. Mario runs a school and a wool cooperative; Ana, a doctor, heads a clinic with Nelda, a progressive nun. Into this idealistic family comes Hans, a jaded Spanish geological engineer -- surveying the land for the local patron, to see if it can be dammed for hydro-electric power, which would drive the peasants from the land into the cities.

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Plot Keywords:

reference to karl marx | argentine | peasant | geological engineer | wool cooperative | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

PG

Details

Country:

Argentina Spain Uruguay

Language:

Spanish

Release Date:

1994 (USA)

Also Known As:

A Place in the World

Filming Locations:

Valle del Conlara, San Luis, Argentina

Box Office

Gross USA:

$100,986

Company Credits

Technical Specs

Runtime:

120 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Official submission of Uruguay for the 'Best Foreign Language Film' category of the 65th Academy Awards in 1993. This is only the second film in the history of the Academy Awards (after the Bowery Boys movie High Society (1955)) to have been nominated for an Oscar and then removed from the ballot. The director Adolfo Aristarain had intended this to be Argentina's official entry for Best Foreign Language Film. When he took it to the Argentinean committee for submission he was told that Argentina had already decided on another film (Eliseo Subiela's The Dark Side of the Heart (1992)). Undaunted he went next door to the Uruguayan committee and offered it as Uruguay's official entry. This went against the academy's rule which states that the film must be directed, written, produced and cast with people from the country of the film's submission. The board submitted "A Place in the World" as Uruguay's official entry despite the fact that it was directed by an Argentinean, written by an Argentinean, produced by Argentineans, cast mostly with Argentineans and told the story of an Argentinean rancher facing off against an Argentinean hydroelectric plant in Argentina. Aristarain knew the rules but decided to submit the film because his wife was a native Uruguayan who had been the film's costume designer and had a hand in co-writing the screenplay. When the 1992 Oscar nominations came out, A Place in the World was among the nominees for Best Foreign Language Film (ironically, the film that Argentina submitted was not). The Academy's board of governors learned that the film was in violation of the rule after the nominations had come out and decided to remove it from the official ballot. Aristarain felt that the board was out of line and after failing to convince them to change their minds, he tried to sue on the grounds of "breach of contract". He lost the suit on the ruling that the Academy "has the complete, untrammeled ability to base the awards on whatever it wants". Angry at the ruling, Aristarain made the decision not to release the film in the United States. He relented and it did get a minor release in early 1995 (where it grossed $100,986). As for the Academy, in an effort to avoid this kind of problem again, they rewrote their official rules to make the submission process more mathematically sound.

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Quotes

Mario: [to Ernesto] You don't like to be bossed around, do you? The more you know, the less orders you'll receive.

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Connections

Featured in Salvados: Sacristán: Retrato del compromiso (2016)

User Reviews

A quiet little film about the rights of the common people.

Up until the 1980s, films from Argentina were heavily censored by their rightist government and films critical of the system were unheard of in this country. However, when this government fell, many films critical of this old system began to proliferate and the most famous of these internationally was "The Official Story"--which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. "A Place in the World" debuted a few years later but was not submitted by the Argentines for this award--and so the filmmakers tried submitting it was a Uruguayan film! Later, the film was disqualified, since it WAS from Argentina and was about the country--a very odd footnote, as it's only one of two films every removed from consideration after submitted to the Academy.

When you watch "A Place in the World", you might not see that the message is political--and it's not nearly as obvious as in "The Official Story". Instead of being directly critical of the federal government, the film is a socialist commentary about the abuse of the landlords and the need for the common men to work together to receive equality. In this case, a jerk rich guy is intent on buying up all the farmers' wool at HIS price...or else. However, when a German geologist arrives in town, the local agitator (the school teacher) is encouraged to fight back for what is right. At the same time, the story of a sympathetic nun is a metaphor for the traditional relationship between the church and state in the land. The story is told as a flashback from the teacher's teenage son's point of view and unfolds slowly and beautifully. The acting is nice but the direction is the star to me. Well worth seeing.