VALENTINA VARGAS RETURNS TO CHILEAN CINEMA AS A KLEPTOMANIAC,
La Tercera, Saturday, January 6, 2007

The actress will share the screen with Álvaro Rudolphy in the film “Optical Illusions”. After become well-known for her work in “The Name of the Rose”, the actress will film – mid-year and in Valdivia -- the comedy directed by first-time feature film director Cristián Jiménez.

Cristián Campos M.

She became well-known in Chile for her participation in the film version of “The Name of the Rose”, with Sean Connery and Christian Slater. She later acted in the fourth part of the movie “Hellraiser” and in B-class U.S. and French films and television series (“Bloody Mallory”, “Air America”). Then Valentina Vargas disappeared, made some sporadic visits back to Chile and, after her part in the film “Los Naufragos” (1994, by Miguel Littín), is now about to make her return to local cinema.

The project is called “Optical Illusions”, a film which will be directed by Cristián Jiménez (“The Treasure of the Snails”) and which will begin filming in July or August of this year. The film is co-produced by Retaguardia Films (see inset) and is financed, in part, by the Chilean National Television Board (CNTV) and the Corporation for the Promotion of Production (CORFO).

In this work situated in Valdivia and which will tentatively premiere in the first half of 2008, Vargas will share the screen with actors such as Paola Lattus, Iván Álvarez de Araya, Gregory Cohen, Roberto Farías, Rosa Calderón and Álvaro Rudolphy. In fact, the latter will play the part of the actress’ husband in the film Jiménez describes as “a melancholy comedy about life in a city that’s halfway between provincial and modern”.

Valentina Vargas will play a well-off woman, who leads a sophisticated life, but who has one weakness: she’s a kleptomaniac. It is even her uncontrolled desire to steal which leads her to meet the mall security guard (Farías), who covers up her crimes and falls in love with her. Rudolphy plays the marketing director of a company called Medicorp and is in charge of carrying out an ingenious advertising campaign to sell the company’s services. As a model, he hires a blind skier who gains his sight and finds that the city is suddenly terrifying to him.

But in this tandem narrative film, it is actress Paola Lattus who has one of the central parts. She is a secretary at Medicorp, sister of the aforementioned security guard and accepts a special promotion by the company for breast augmentation surgery. She also develops a relation with one of the company’s most efficient employees, who is sent to an outplacement workshop.

According to the director, all the stories told in this feature aim to show the dreams and frustrations of a group of ordinary people, and how they face the complex process of modernity. He explains also that he wants to use the rainy Valdivian winter to promote the melancholy of the story.

The script for “Optical Illusions” was written by Jiménez and Alicia Scherson (director of “Play”) and talks are being held for Los Tres bandmember Ángel Parra to do the soundtrack.