Five years since directing a segment of the anthology film “The Year of the Everlasting Storm,” renowned Chilean director Dominga Sotomayor is back in Cannes with “La Perra.” Premiering at Directors’ Fortnight, the film is based on Pilar Quintana’s eponymous book and produced by Chile’s Planta in co-production with Brazil’s RT Features.
“La Perra” stars Manuela Oyarzún as Silvia, a woman whose quiet life on a remote island off the Chilean coast is shaken by the arrival of stray puppy Yuri, who stirs in her a long-suppressed longing for motherhood. When Yuri goes missing, Silvia’s childhood trauma comes to the surface, forcing the woman to confront a still very much present past. The tender drama also stars Selton Mello (“I’m Still Here”) and David Gaete (“A Place Called Dignity”).
Speaking with Variety ahead of the film’s premiere at the Croisette, Sotomayor says she was drawn to working on her first-ever adaptation after speaking to famed Brazilian producer Rodrigo Teixeira, with whom she had previously collaborated on “Too Late to Die Young,” a film that saw her become the first woman to win a best director Leopard at Locarno.
“I wanted to continue our collaboration, and he had a lot of experience with adaptations,” she recalls. “He brought me this book when I was working on another original script that was a much bigger and more complex film, and I wanted to make something in between. I was also attracted to an adaptation after working on very personal films that took years to get made.”
