26° TORINO FILM FESTIVAL
THE ZONE

NUCINGEN HAUS

MISS CHRISTINE
by Raúl Ruiz
Country: France, Chile
Year: 2008
Duration: 94'


Toward the end of the 1930s, a rich American, William James, lives
in Paris with his wife, Anne-Marie. The man is a gambler and one day
he wins a beautiful estate in Chile, on the slopes of the Cordillera of the
Andes. The couple decides to take the long voyage to see the house
and meet the people living there. But James soon discovers that the
people he encounters aren’t all alive. Vampires, ghosts and the living
dead infest the antique villa and are playing by their own rules.


“In a certain sense, it is a musical “vampirization.” And, since it really
is a vampire story, this is pertinent. The film takes place in a world
that is half fantastic, made of impressions, dreams and music.
A world made of echoes of the school of Vienna, a few Hollywood
pipedreams and a few quotes from early twentieth century Latin
American impressionism. In short, the driving force of Nucingen
Haus
is melancholy and a sort of disquieting strangeness.”

Biography

film director

Raúl Ruiz

(Puerto Montt, Chile, 1941 - Paris, 2011) took up cinema in Argentina. After returning to Chile he was involved in avant-garde theater. In 1968, he debuted in film with Three Sad Tigers, Golden Leopard in Locarno. Forced into exile after Pinochet’s coup d’état, he found refuge in France. He made his name on the international scene with The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting. He has then directed over one hundred films, making him one of the most prolific directors of all time. In 1996 he made Three Lives and Only One Death, the second to the last film Marcello Mastroianni acted in; the next year he received a Silver Bear in Berlin for Genealogies of a Crime. He then continued making films until his death, always working alongside his wife, director and editor Valeria Sarmiento.

FILMOGRAFIA

Tres tristes tigres (1968), L’hypothèse du tableau volé (1979), La ville des pirates (La città dei pirati, 1983), L’éveillé du Pont de l’Alma (1985), Trois vies et une seule mort (Tre vite e una sola morte, 1996), Généalogie d’un crime (Genealogia di un crimine, 1997), Shattered Image (Autopsia di un sogno, 1998), Le temps retrouvé (Il tempo ritrovato, 1999), Les âmes fortes (2001), Cofralandes, rapsodia chilena (2002), Médée (2003), Días de campo (2004), Le domaine perdu (2005), Klimt (2006), La recta provincia (2007), Nucingen Haus (Miss Christine, 2008), L’estate breve (doc., 2010), Mistérios de Lisboa (2010).

Cast

& Credits

regia, sceneggiatura/director, screenplay Raoul Ruiz
soggetto/story dal romanzo/from the novel La Maison de Nucingen di/
by Honoré de Balzac
fotografia/cinematography Inti Briones
montaggio/film editing Beatrice Clericco
scenografia/production design Verónica Astudillo
musica/music Jorge Arriagada
suono/sound Felipe Zabala, Gérard Rousseau
interpreti e personaggi/cast and characters
Elsa Zylberstein (Anne-Marie), Jean-Marc Barr (William James), Audrey Marnay, Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, Thomas Durand, Laurent Malet
produttore/producer François Margolin
produzione/production Margo Films, MACT Productions
vendita all’estero/world sales UMedia
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