LITIGANTE
A lawyer in the midst of a corruption scandal navigates single motherhood, the pitfalls of the dating world, and her most challenging case yet: her mother.
With each blistering barb and painful truth, Franco Lolli’s Cannes Critics’ Week opening night film Litigante is a smart and cathartic exploration of a Colombian family on the verge of a breakdown. Beady-eyed, quick-witted matriarch and retired lawyer Leticia (Lolli’s mother Leticia Gómez) discovers her lung cancer has returned, yet still finds the strength to criticize every life decision of her eldest daughter Silvia (Lolli’s cousin Carolina Sanín). Silvia can’t even escape judgment at work when she is publicly hanged on a morning talk show for representing a government corruption scandal. The only light in Silvia’s life is her young son Antonio, who receives equally gushing admiration from Leticia. But Antonio isn’t enough to curb the years of resentment between the eerily similar women, which is escalated by Leticia’s sense of dwindling time. A revelation in her first screen performance, Sanín effortlessly projects anguish and ferocity in Silvia’s moments of pain and levity. Inspired by Sanín’s own life, Lolli has constructed a dense, multi-faceted drama that is executed with a natural ease even when the relationships are in contempt.
CAST: CAROLINA SANÍN, LETICIA GÓMEZ, ANTONIO MARTÍNEZ, VLADIMIR DURÁN
All sales are final. Admission is not guaranteed after scheduled start time.
CLICK HERE to return to the complete 28th Philadelphia Film Festival schedule.