THE SKY OF THE CENTAUR by Hugo Santiago (2015)
SYNOPSIS
The engineer had never been to South America before. His vessel, heading towards Patagonia makes a stop at dusk in Buenos Aires, from where it ́ll depart again the following day.
And while his friend the Captain stays on board, scrutinizing the southern sky, the engineer goes into town to honour his father ́s request: to deliver a small package to one of his friends: Victor Zagros, whose address is signalled with a cross in the map.
So it happens that Victor Zagros no longer lives there: someone points to the engineer the pension where he is likely to be found, but as he is arriving, the package is violently stolen by a bunch of unknowns.
Following the track of the stolen package, the engineer is seemingly devoured by a labyrinth- the city itself and its repertoire of strange characters: a band of lunatic thieves chasing a Fenix, a sharp schoolgirl, a white bully and a black bully, a giant in a wheelchair who reigns in a shipyard, an affected collector, a messenger who is dead – and Victor Zagros, the king of falsifiers.
And there is also Elisa, the marvellous one, who reveals to him a prodigious painter
and the ugly face of America, nature extended as though if in a feast while men fight each other with bullets…
The engineer chases after his package: hilarious and vertiginous pursuit in which he risks his life, inside a city, a kind of “box of wonders”, that little by little starts seeming to be out of this world- and his only compass is the map his father gave him, where he signals his whereabouts…
The facts precipitate – and the streets and houses and piers and parks: the engineer manoeuvres; but even though he succeeds in delivering the bizarre object to Zagros, is Zagros going to reveal the final meaning of its secret?
Back in the ship, the engineer understands that the inquire of a day in Buenos Aires has transformed him infinitely, and as the vessel leaves the port, he will outline in the map of the city his itinerary- and there in the map, a revelation shapes, something glittering will appear…
DIRECTOR - Hugo Santiago
Hugo Santiago has lived in France since 1959. He studied Literature, Philosophy and Music. From 1959 to 1966, he was assistant director to Robert Bresson. He was also a choreographer and metteur en scene for _Histoire du Soldat_ (Stravinsky Festival, 1961). He authored and produced two shorts: _Los Contrabandistas_ (Buenos Aires, 1967) and _Los Taitas_ (Buenos Aires, 1968). From 1970 to 1973 he did research on film.
