''Las modelos'' (

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...

for "the models") is a 1963 film directed and written by

Vlasta Lah Vlasta Giulia Lah Rocchi (January 13, 1913 – July 12, 1978), known professionally as Vlasta Lah, was the first woman Film director, director of sound films in Argentine cinema, as well as the only woman filmmaker in Latin America in the 1960s. B ...

, the first woman director of

sound films A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before ...

in Argentina and the only woman filmmaker in 1960s

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

. It was her second and last film, released after her 1960 directorial debut ''

Las furias ''Las furias'' (Spanish for "the furies") is a 1960 Argentine drama film directed by Vlasta Lah, based on the 1950 play of the same name by Enrique Suárez de Deza. The first Argentine sound film directed by a woman, it was the directorial debu ...

''. The film tells the story of Sonia and Ana, two young ''

haute couture ''Haute couture'' (; ; French for 'high sewing', 'high dressmaking') is the creation of exclusive custom-fitted high-end fashion design that is constructed by hand from start-to-finish. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Paris became th ...

models A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a measure. Models c ...

, who are played by two real-life models instead of actresses.

Cast

* Mercedes Alberti * Greta Ibsen *

Fabio Zerpa Fabio Zerpa (4 December 1928, Rosario, Uruguay – 7 August 2019) was a Uruguayan actor, parapsychologist and UFO researcher. He resided in Argentina from 1951 on. Biography Fabio Zerpa arrived in Argentina in 1951. Following a short theatrica ...

* Jorge Hilton * Alberto Berco * Aldo Mayo *

Nélida Bilbao Nélida Bilbao (1918 – August 1990) was an Argentine film actress.Richard p.280 She appeared in twenty-six films between 1938 and 1963. Filmography * ''Women Who Work'' (1938) * ''Jettatore'' (1938) * ''Mi suegra es una fiera'' (1939) * ''Div ...

* Lia Casanova * Argentinita Vélez * Leda Zanda * María Principito * Víctor Martucci * Guillermo Pérez Gaviola * Guillermo Gatti * Guillermo Cuba

Critical reception

Unlike ''Las furias'', which was poorly received by critics, ''Las modelos'' received mostly positive reviews. ''Radiolandia'' magazine declared that the theme of the film was of "appreciable depth", celebrating that its the struggle of young women who earn a living on their own in big cities. The review of newspaper ''Crítica'' read: "In the manner of a short novel, ''

'' in a modest approach." In a less enthusiastic review, ''

La Nación ''La Nación'' () is an Argentine daily newspaper. As the country's leading conservative newspaper, ''La Nación''s main competitor is the more liberal '' Clarín''. It is regarded as a newspaper of record for Argentina. Its motto is: "''La Nac ...

'' equated the film to a

television play A television play is a television programming genre which is a drama performance broadcast from a multi-camera television studio, usually live in the early days of television but later recorded to tape. This is in contrast to a television movi ...

and described it as an "elementary story loaded with ingenuity and conventionalism". Writing in 2001, Raúl Manrupe and María Alejandra Portela described the film as a "boring point of view that wants to function as social criticism." In a 2022 poll of

The 100 Greatest Films of Argentine Cinema The 100 Greatest Films of Argentine Cinema (Spanish: ''Las 100 mejores películas del cine argentino''), also known as the Survey of Argentine cinema (Spanish: ''Encuesta de cine argentino''), are a series of opinion polls carried out to establis ...

—organized by magazines ''La vida útil'', ''Taipei'' and ''La tierra quema'', presented at the

Mar del Plata International Film Festival The Mar del Plata International Film Festival ( es, Festival Internacional de Cine de Mar del Plata) is an international film festival that takes place every November in the city of Mar del Plata, Argentina. It is the only competitive feature fest ...

—''Las modelos'' reached the joint 62nd spot, meaning it received one vote. It was voted by filmmaker Lorena Jozami, who described it as a "novel film ahead of its time with strong female characters that defy the androcentric trend of cinema to this day."

References

External links

''Las modelos''
at

Cinenacional.com Cinenacional.com is a web portal and World Wide Web, web-based database about Cinema of Argentina, Argentine cinema. It is the most comprehensive site for information about the Argentine film industry, with a vast array of information on films, tel ...

(in Spanish) * {{DEFAULTSORT:modelos, Las 1963 films 1960s Spanish-language films Argentine black-and-white films 1960s Argentine films Films about modeling

Cast

Critical reception

See also

References

External links