Bad Hair
Description
In a Caracas tenement high-rise, Marta (Samantha Castillo) is raising two children alone, their father long gone and her security-job employment recently terminated. Broke and desperate, her frustrations find a focal point: 10-year-old elder son Junior’s (Samuel Lange) curious new determination to straighten his frizzy interracial hair. He wants to look like the people he watches on TV–not actually be a beauty contestant or singer, but simply resemble one. It’s a harmless enough pursuit, one would think. But Marta worries it’s a sign of femininity that underscores her failings as a parent and provider. The resulting conflict between them shouldn’t turn serious—and yet somehow it keeps pressing all the wrong buttons until mother and son may not be able to repair the damage. Without ever spelling anything out, Mariana Rondón’s prize-winning feature addresses potent issues of economic pressure and homophobia within the family unit. She displays a fine understanding of the unspoken tensions that can create a divide—and the occasional words said in anger that can seal it. Bad Hair is a finely acted, deceptively small-scaled drama that subtly works its way toward a big impact. –Dennis Harvey
A native of Barquisimeto, Mariana Rondón studied filmmaking in France and Cuba before returning to Venezuela for her first feature At Midnight and a Half, co-directed with Marité Ugás. In addition to work on several TV projects, she subsequently wrote the screenplay for Ugás’s The Kid Who Lies (2010), and wrote/directed Postcards from Leningrad (2007). Bad Hair, her latest, has won top awards at the Havana, San Sebastian, Thessaloniki and other festivals.
Trailer
//player.vimeo.com/video/88104414?autoplay=1Film Details
Language Spanish
Original Language Title Pelo malo
Year 2013
Runtime 93
Country Venezuela/Peru
Director Mariana Rondón
Producer Marité Ugás
Writer Mariana Rondón
Editor Marité Ugás
Cinematographer Micaela Cajahuaringa
Music Camilo Froideval
Cast Samuel Lange, Samantha Castillo, Nelly Ramos, Beto Benites, Maria Emilia Sulbarán
Print Source FiGa Films/ alex@figafilms.com/ www.pelomalofilm.com/ www.figafilms.com