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How Jayro Bustamante Balanced Horror and Real-Life Danger for 'La Llorona'

Writer/director Jayro Bustamante's La Llorona is a masterful display of contained, low-budget horror with political impact. La Llorona is a familiar folk tale, but in director Jayro Bustamante's version, the weeping woman appears in a political drama based on the real-life atrocities of Guatemala's murderous past. The story follows a retired dictator, General Enrique Monteverde (Julio Diaz), who is put on trial for the genocide of the Maya-Ixil people by the military in Guatemala in the 1980s. As he and his family shelter in their mansion with two servants, including recent arrival Alma (María Mercedes Coroy), the ghosts of Monteverde's past begin to torment them. In reality, Guatemala has still not fully faced the demons of this time, so much that Bustamante called the subject "taboo" and revealed he was forced to conduct much of the pre-production in secret and then avoid attempts to shut the film down. Read More...

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Published By: NoFilmSchool - Friday, 5 March, 2021

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