Wakolda is a powerful, multi-layered historical thriller out in cinemas on August 8th.
Taking as its inspiration one of the darkest, most mysterious episodes in Argentine modern history, it focuses on the mutual fascination between its two central characters – a young girl and a German doctor who in 1960 made her the subject of one of his experiments – the notorious Josef Mengele, the ‘Angel of Death’. It was selected as Argentina’s entry for the 2014 Academy awards and was invited to the prestigious Un Certain Regard category at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.
Lucia Puenzo, the acclaimed novelist and award-winning director of XXY and The Fish Child, has adapted from her own eponymous novel, to create a very involving cinematic drama.
Based on true events, writer-director Puenzo adapted Wakolda to create a dark and intense dramatic thriller about the hidden identity of the ‘German Doctor’. When a scientist befriends an Argentine family, in particular their young daughter Lilith, they unknowingly strike up a friendship with one of the world’s most terrifying war criminals, Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor who is on the run for his crimes in Auschwitz post World War II. As he starts to penetrate their everyday life and offer growth hormone therapy to Lilith, the family’s father becomes suspicious of this charismatic yet charming lethal man.
A sophisticated and evocative look at the post-war fate of the Nazi war criminals who made South America their home, Wakolda skilfully blends one family’s very personal story with a wider exploration of the local German expat population, still struggling to come to terms with its past.
Wakolda is in cinemas 8th August 2014.
