Argentine director Lucrecia Martel has the screenplay for her next film lined up, and it’ll be her first narrative feature since 2017’s “Zama.” What’s more, “Gente,” the working title of the new project, will see Martel work in a genre she’s never done before.
El País reports that “Gente” will be a science fiction drama, and an unconventional one at that. “I already have the script. It’s a science fiction film that won’t be dystopian, nor will it have a classic narrative,” Martel said about the screenplay. She also joked that the project is “a mainstream film that will be a huge box office success”: “Crazy wishful thinking, as the tango says.”
No plot details for “Gente” yet, much less a shooting date, and given Martel’s work rate, who knows when this film will enter production? The filmmaker, while regularly making shorts, has taken considerable time between feature films: nine years between 2008’s “The Headless Woman” and “Zama,” and eight years between “Zama” and her most recent film, the doc “Our Land” from last year. “Our Land” was Martel’s first documentary, about the Chuschagasta indigenous community in Tucumán and the 2009 murder of Javier Chocobar. The project was a labor of love for Martel, the product of fourteen years of research in her native Argentina. The film had its world premiere out of competition at Venice last year, where it was met with positive acclaim from critics (read The Playlist’s review here).
Alongside filmmaking, Martel frequently gives public talks and lectures about her career. Argentinian publisher Caja Negra recently assembled some of them into the compendium “Un destino común,” or “A Common Destiny.” “Now I’m more a preacher than a director,” Martel quipped, but she did note that she believes the medium she works in is more important than ever. “In my almost 60 years, I never thought there would be a better time for cinema,” she said about movies and their relationship to culture and human society. “Not for entertainment, but for cinema itself. This is its time.”
Stay tuned for further details about “Gente,” which is sure to be a treat once Martel makes it.
