As we head into the holiday season, our super indy film by Director Lilian Ivachow, Pablo and Virginia go to Luján (Pablo y Virginia van a Luján), continues to amaze with its seventh screening this year, this time with a fitting year end finale at the prestigious National Library (Left - Biblioteca Nacional.) in Buenos Aires on November 28th.
The film received an enthusiastic reception, followed by an extended Q&A with Director Ivachow from a packed audience of about 110 people. A British blogger named Sally who attended the National Library screening describes the scene that night in her blog, Sallycat's Adventures.
The audience included film critics and journalists and gives the film momentum going into 2010 after four festival showings in the last half of 2009. Lilian has screened the movie at multiple venues in Agentina, at the International Film Festival of Uruguay in Montevideo and the B2 Festival in Santiago, Chile, always to highly favorable responses.
A large part of the fascination with the film is doubtless linked to the history of Luján itself. About six million people visit Luján every year, and the Basilica there is an official National Historical monument with a storied past filled with attribution of miracles, a Papal coronation and a colorful story about the tiny Our Lady of Luján statuette enshrined in the basilica.
Each October, there is three week, 68 kilometer diosecan youth pilgrimage from Buenos Aires to Luján. This pilgrimage drew 1.2 million young people last year, and over the past ten years, the pilgrimage has begun to take on the feel of a concert or festival.
Director Ivachow, who also wrote the film, is a critic for Argentina's most respected journal of cinema, El Amante. She takes us on a fascinating journey into the heart of the Luján phenomenon by creatively embedding a fictional love story at the center of her naturalistic documentary of the pilgrimage. Pablo and Virginia Go to Luján is the first movie of its kind about Luján, part ultra low budget cinema verité, part unblinking documentary, part offbeat love story.
