Prisoners of the Earth

Prisoners of the Earth, also known as Prisoners of the Land,^[1] (Spanish: Prisioneros de la tierra) is a 1939 Argentine drama film directed by Mario Soffici. The film premiered in Buenos Aires. The film is often cited as one of the greatest in the history of Argentine cinema, and established Soffici as a "social" filmmaker.^[2] It was awarded by the Municipality of Buenos Aires as the best film of the year, and the Silver Condor Award instituted by the Argentine Association of Film Critics.

Prisoners of the Earth
Theatrical release poster
Prisioneros de la tierra
Directed by	Mario Soffici
Written by	Ulyses Petit de Murat Darío Quiroga
Based on	"Una bofetada", "Un peón" and "Los destiladores de naranjas" by Horacio Quiroga
Starring	Francisco Petrone Ángel Magaña
Cinematography	Pablo Tabernero
Edited by	José de Nico Gerardo Rinaldi
Music by	Lucio Demare
Production company	Pampa Film
Distributed by	Argentina Sono Film
Release date	1939 (1939)
Running time	85 minutes
Country	Argentina
Languages	Spanish Guaraní

It was selected as the greatest Argentine film of all time in the polls conducted by the Museo del Cine Pablo Ducrós Hicken in 1977 and 1984, while it ranked 6th in the 2000 edition.^[3] In a new version of the survey organized in 2022 by the specialized magazines La vida util, Taipei and La tierra quema, presented at the Mar del Plata International Film Festival, the film reached the 19th position.^[4]

Cast

• Homero Cárpena
• Raúl De Lange
• Roberto Fugazot
• Elisa Galvé as Andrea
• Ángel Magaña as Esteban Podeley
• Pepito Petray
• Francisco Petrone as Köhner
• Félix Tortorelli
• Manuel Villoldo

Restoration

In 2019, the Museo del Cine of Argentina, with the support of Martin Scorsese's The Film Foundation and the laboratory of the Cineteca di Bologna, restored "Prisoners of the Land" from two 35mm prints of the film found both in Paris at the Cinémathèque Française and in Prague at the Czech Film Archive. The discovery of this two prints was crucial, due to the lack of a national cinematheque and protective cultural politics the original argentine negative was lost during the last century, and the only copy left in the country was a degraded 16mm. Paula Felix-Didier, head of the Museo del Cine and principal responsibility of the restoration, said about the significance of this new copy: "This is a new possibility of seeing one of the fundamental films of the history of Argentine cinema again as it had been decades ago could not be seen, and once again having a deep heritage rescue to understand the history of Argentine cinema and its evolution".^[5]

This 2019 restoration was first shown at the Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival in Bologna and later, in December, it was first screened in Argentina at the MALBA, in Buenos Aires.^[6]

References

1. Rist, Peter H. (2014). Historical Dictionary of South American Cinema. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 464–465. ISBN 978-081-088-036-8. Retrieved 6 November 2022 – via Google Books.
2. Curiel , Manuel. " Argentina unpublished "28 Lugo Film Week.
3. "Las 100 mejores del periodo 1933-1999 del Cine Argentino". La Mirada Cautiva (3). Buenos Aires: Museo del Cine Pablo Ducrós Hicken: 6–14. 2000. Archived from the original on 21 November 2022. Retrieved 21 November 2022 – via Encuesta de cine argentino 2022 on Google Drive.
4. "Top 100" (in Spanish). Encuesta de cine argentino 2022. 11 November 2022. Retrieved 13 November 2022.
5. "Prisioneros de la tierra, la nueva restauración del Museo". Asociación de amigos del Museo del Cine. Retrieved 27 November 2019.
6. "Recuperación Prisioneros de la tierra". MALBA.

Further reading

• Tomas Abraham article about Soffici (in Spanish)

External links

• Prisioneros de la tierra at IMDb