Buenos Aires, Argentina — Alongside a tide of pensioner rallies and a workers strike that crippled a day’s transportation, the 26th edition of the Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival (Bafici) managed another explosive set of diverse screenings and industry discussions that wrapped on April 13, after 13 days of cinematic indulgence.
An awards ceremony, held at La Boca’s Usina del Arte Saturday evening, ushered in the final day of the buoyant affair, Laura Casabe’s “The Virgin of the Quarry Lake,” “Under the Flags, the Sun” from Juanjo Pereira, and Tomás Terzano’s latest short “The Banner,” (“El Banner”) taking top plaudits.
The meticulously curated program coaxed throngs of cinephiles to six arthouse and mainstream venues nestled in the heart of the city’s theater district, Teatro San Martin, acting as the event’s industry hub. The Museo del Cine, south-of-center, held special screenings and events in parallel. 298 films from...
An awards ceremony, held at La Boca’s Usina del Arte Saturday evening, ushered in the final day of the buoyant affair, Laura Casabe’s “The Virgin of the Quarry Lake,” “Under the Flags, the Sun” from Juanjo Pereira, and Tomás Terzano’s latest short “The Banner,” (“El Banner”) taking top plaudits.
The meticulously curated program coaxed throngs of cinephiles to six arthouse and mainstream venues nestled in the heart of the city’s theater district, Teatro San Martin, acting as the event’s industry hub. The Museo del Cine, south-of-center, held special screenings and events in parallel. 298 films from...
- 4/14/2025
- by Holly Jones
- Variety Film + TV
Eternal
In Eternal, the vampire is a vamp. And a lesbian vamp at that. Indeed, the film's debuting Canadian writer-director-producers, Wilhelm Liebenberg and Federico Sanchez, are so determined to turn their tale of Ms. Dracula into an erotic thriller, they sacrifice all story logic and character integrity at the altar of bondage, blindfolds, fetish worship, high-risk sex and several literal bloodbaths. Bram Stoker would be, well, horrified.
The filmmakers certainly pile on the atmosphere. There's a dark, forbidding stately home hidden away in woods with bonfires on the front lawn, boudoirs and bathrooms dripping with suggestive decor that mingles the sinister with the decadent, an orgiastic Venetian masked ball with painted, semi-nude women. Every female in the movie is dressed to look like a tart or a dominatrix. Occasional lapses in dialogue contain such howlers that one is tempted to treat the movie as camp, but Liebenberg and Sanchez seem to be treating all this with studied seriousness.
Not that any audience will. Eternal is selling sex and horror and young, beautiful women in jeopardy. Nothing new there. This 2003 film, according to the credit roll, will entice young people in the mood for old-fashioned voyeurism, but boxoffice will be fleeting, certainly not eternal. Real payoff will come in cable and DVD.
The hero is a Montreal vice cop, Raymond Pope (Conrad Pla) -- don't you love that name? -- whose approach to his job is to indulge in as much vice as possible. He apparently is willing to have kinky sex with just about every eligible woman in Montreal other than his wife (Sarah Manninen).
Meanwhile, his wife goes cruising for women. Being more discreet than her husband, she does so on the Internet under the handle of Wildcat. Which brings her to a gated mansion that would not be out of place in New Orleans, where she meets the alarmingly alluring Elizabeth Kane (Caroline Neron in a bravura performance). Elizabeth seduces, then slays Wildcat with a sharp metal dagger that slips over one of her fingers.
As Elizabeth drinks thirstily from an open vein in WIldcat's neck, her hapless assistant Irina (Victoria Sanchez) wanders in and says, "I'm sorry. I hope I'm not disturbing you."
Irina soon has more pressing concerns when Pope shows up a few days later -- it takes awhile for him to notice his wife is missing -- and reveals he is a cop. Irina was supposed to vet such troublesome victims before ushering them in to her mistress.
Thankfully for Elizabeth, Pope is a poor cop. For he never bothers to make his investigation official -- after all, a missing person is a missing person -- or to find and follow up on clues. Mostly, he continually confronts Elizabeth, makes empty threats and finally decides what the hell and has sex with her, too.
Meanwhile, bodies pile up and all evidence points toward Pope. Why this would be is unclear because nowhere in vampire literature do the Undead have the ability to fabricate DNA or to cause anyone's body fluids to turn up in places they should not be.
One body happens to belong to the wife (Ilona Elkins) of Pope's partner (Nick Baillie, ) with whom -- you guessed it -- Pope has been having an affair involving bondage and razor blades. Another belongs to his flirty baby-sitter (Liane Balaban). What Pope doesn't seem to realize -- but the viewer does -- is that Elizabeth is really Countess Erszebet Bathory of Hungary, a 15th century woman responsible for the torture deaths of about 650 young women.
Anyway, the movie moves on to a wild climax in Venice that is rife with illogic. That is unless someone can explain how a bunch of Italian cops can capture and imprison a vampire by simply drawing their weapons. The film ends with an enigmatic coda that might signal the desire for a sequel. More Eternity anyone?
ETERNAL
Regent Releasing
Horizon Entertainment presents a Wild Koast Entertainment
Credits:
Screenwriter-directors: Wilhelm Liebenberg, Federico Sanchez
Producers: Tommaso Calevi, Wilhelm Liebenberg, Federico Sanchez
Executive producer: Bruce Robertson
Director of photography: Jamie Thompson
Production designer: Perri Gorrara
Music: Mysterious Art
Costumes: Claire Nadon, Stefania Svizzeretto
Editor: Isabelle Levesque
Cast:
Raymond Pope: Conrad Pla
Elizabeth Kane: Caroline Neron
Irina: Victoria Sanchez
Wildcat: Sarah Manninen
Nancy Cusack: Ilona Elkins
Dean Cusack: Nick Baillie
Lisa: Liane Balaban...
The filmmakers certainly pile on the atmosphere. There's a dark, forbidding stately home hidden away in woods with bonfires on the front lawn, boudoirs and bathrooms dripping with suggestive decor that mingles the sinister with the decadent, an orgiastic Venetian masked ball with painted, semi-nude women. Every female in the movie is dressed to look like a tart or a dominatrix. Occasional lapses in dialogue contain such howlers that one is tempted to treat the movie as camp, but Liebenberg and Sanchez seem to be treating all this with studied seriousness.
Not that any audience will. Eternal is selling sex and horror and young, beautiful women in jeopardy. Nothing new there. This 2003 film, according to the credit roll, will entice young people in the mood for old-fashioned voyeurism, but boxoffice will be fleeting, certainly not eternal. Real payoff will come in cable and DVD.
The hero is a Montreal vice cop, Raymond Pope (Conrad Pla) -- don't you love that name? -- whose approach to his job is to indulge in as much vice as possible. He apparently is willing to have kinky sex with just about every eligible woman in Montreal other than his wife (Sarah Manninen).
Meanwhile, his wife goes cruising for women. Being more discreet than her husband, she does so on the Internet under the handle of Wildcat. Which brings her to a gated mansion that would not be out of place in New Orleans, where she meets the alarmingly alluring Elizabeth Kane (Caroline Neron in a bravura performance). Elizabeth seduces, then slays Wildcat with a sharp metal dagger that slips over one of her fingers.
As Elizabeth drinks thirstily from an open vein in WIldcat's neck, her hapless assistant Irina (Victoria Sanchez) wanders in and says, "I'm sorry. I hope I'm not disturbing you."
Irina soon has more pressing concerns when Pope shows up a few days later -- it takes awhile for him to notice his wife is missing -- and reveals he is a cop. Irina was supposed to vet such troublesome victims before ushering them in to her mistress.
Thankfully for Elizabeth, Pope is a poor cop. For he never bothers to make his investigation official -- after all, a missing person is a missing person -- or to find and follow up on clues. Mostly, he continually confronts Elizabeth, makes empty threats and finally decides what the hell and has sex with her, too.
Meanwhile, bodies pile up and all evidence points toward Pope. Why this would be is unclear because nowhere in vampire literature do the Undead have the ability to fabricate DNA or to cause anyone's body fluids to turn up in places they should not be.
One body happens to belong to the wife (Ilona Elkins) of Pope's partner (Nick Baillie, ) with whom -- you guessed it -- Pope has been having an affair involving bondage and razor blades. Another belongs to his flirty baby-sitter (Liane Balaban). What Pope doesn't seem to realize -- but the viewer does -- is that Elizabeth is really Countess Erszebet Bathory of Hungary, a 15th century woman responsible for the torture deaths of about 650 young women.
Anyway, the movie moves on to a wild climax in Venice that is rife with illogic. That is unless someone can explain how a bunch of Italian cops can capture and imprison a vampire by simply drawing their weapons. The film ends with an enigmatic coda that might signal the desire for a sequel. More Eternity anyone?
ETERNAL
Regent Releasing
Horizon Entertainment presents a Wild Koast Entertainment
Credits:
Screenwriter-directors: Wilhelm Liebenberg, Federico Sanchez
Producers: Tommaso Calevi, Wilhelm Liebenberg, Federico Sanchez
Executive producer: Bruce Robertson
Director of photography: Jamie Thompson
Production designer: Perri Gorrara
Music: Mysterious Art
Costumes: Claire Nadon, Stefania Svizzeretto
Editor: Isabelle Levesque
Cast:
Raymond Pope: Conrad Pla
Elizabeth Kane: Caroline Neron
Irina: Victoria Sanchez
Wildcat: Sarah Manninen
Nancy Cusack: Ilona Elkins
Dean Cusack: Nick Baillie
Lisa: Liane Balaban...
- 9/6/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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