Las Acacias – Corrie film club’s choice for March

In complete contrast to the gritty reality of Gasland, the Argentine film call Las Acacias is a touching story of a truck driver, Rubén, who picks up a surprising passenger – or rather, two passengers. Rubén has agreed with his employer to pick up a young Paraguayan woman, Jacinta, and take her to Buenos Aires, together with his load of timber – but he hadn’t expected that Jacinta would bring her five-month-old daughter, Anahí. Protest is useless, and they set off in silence.

Las Acacias, directed by Pablo Giorgelli, will be screened in Corrie Hall on Sunday, March 10th at 8.00pm. It deservedly won the Caméra d’Or at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival for its light, though sensitive touch on the way three people, one of them a baby, are going to cope with a two-day journey in a lorry cab from Paraguay to Buenos Aires. When little Anahi needs a feed, Rubén pulls off the road and wonders if he should put this inconvenient young mother and her child on a bus for the rest of the journey. But somehow, he doesn’t … Las Acacias is too delicate a film for any instant romance to be suggested, but it works on a deeper level than that. A road movie that accepts the long tedium of the road, it manages to make the truck into a private place in which feelings, gradually and at first with massive reluctance, start to work their way to the surface. Subtle and fascinating.

Like all Corrie Film Club events, the screening is open to everyone and makes no charge, though small contributions towards covering the cost are warmly welcomed.