THE HEADLESS WOMAN | Dir. Lucrecia Martel | 2008 | 87 min | PG | 35mm

A bourgeois middle-aged dentist named Veronica (MARIA ONETTO) drives alone on a dirt road, becomes distracted, and runs over something. Immediately she becomes disoriented, unmoored from her identity and reality, like a sleepwalker who’s actually awake. As the week goes on, she becomes obsessed with the possibility that she may have killed someone: a young boy whose body is found in a roadside canal. Veronica tries to piece together what happened while her husband systematically erases her tracks. A chilling parable about a woman in shock, Lucrecia Martel’s third feature explores the intricacies of class and the role of women in a male-dominated society.

Between November and December Calgary Cinematheque presents a four-film series from a diverse set of Argentine directors, all released in the 21st Century as Argentina was emerging from their economic crisis. The four films, JAUJA (Lisandro Alonso), THE HEADLESS WOMAN (Lucrecia Martel), BOMBON (Carlos Sorin) and VIOLA (Matías Piñeiro), are by directors associated with different regions of Argentina because of their film settings. In addition, these directors themes and styles range from a vérité style to a cinema inspired by theatre and literature.