Invasión

Director Hugo Santiago co-wrote Invasión with two giants of Argentine literature, Adolfo Bioy Casares and Jorge Luis Borges. Originally thought lost due to the Argentine dictatorship of 1976–1983, a 35mm print was discovered in 2004, allowing the film to be restored and become regarded as a masterpiece of Latin American cinema. In a plot reminiscent of Homer’s The Iliad, the city of Aquilea is taken under siege by sinister forces. While most of the population remains oblivious, a group of men make best efforts to defend the city from the inevitable. Presented as part of LIFF 2021’s Kafkaesque Cinema selection.

Co-written by Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares, Invasion’s belated style evokes Hollywood 1930s gangsters and foreshadows the military coup d’états of 1966 and 1976 in Argentina. Borges commented that the film ‘is the detailed projection both seen and heard, enriched and magical, of something dreamed and barely glimpsed….Invasión seems unlike any other film that I have seen, and may well be the first example of a whole new fantastic genre.’ Casares wrote that Invasión ‘does not praise the shrewdness and effectiveness of the conqueror, but rather the courage of a handful of warriors ready to defend their Troy — which is far too much like Buenos Aires — where there is always a group of friends and a tango inviting you to fight for just and noble causes.’