CL, BR | 2008 | colour | 97 min
reż|dir Pablo Larraín pro|pro Juan de Dios Larraín scen|wr Alfredo Castro, Mateo Iribarren, Pablo Larraín zdj|ph  Sergio Armstrong mon|ed Andrea Chignoli ob|cast Alfredo Castro, Paola Lattus, Héctor Morales, Amparo Noguera, Elsa Poblete dys|dis Funny Baloons

A penetrating portrait of Chilean society during Pinochet dictatorial. A minor criminal Raúl Peralta is obsessed with the film Saturday Night Fever and John Travolta. He constantly visits an empty cinema and repeats film dialogs as if it was a prayer. When his favorite movie has been replaced by other musical – Grease, Raúl goes mad. He denies his identity, creating himself Tony Manero, a character from a movie with Bee Gees music. The metaphorical story of madness includes a merciless evaluation of a historical reality of Larrain’s homeland. The director emphasizes, that he wanted to tell a story about a “society,  which hands are soaked in blood, and which still want to look stylish and fashionable” whilst ignoring suffering and violence all around. But most of all, Tony Manero is a picture about an identity crisis and about escape from the reality of the unwanted ego.

AWARDS
2009 Rotterdam IFF – KNF Award for Pablo Larraín
2008 Warsaw IFF – Special Jury Award for Pablo Larraín