''Prisoners of the Earth'', also known as ''Prisoners of the Land'', (Spanish: ''Prisioneros de la tierra'') is a 1939 Argentine

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

directed by

Mario Soffici Mario Soffici (14 May 1900 – 10 May 1977) was an Argentine film director, actor and screenwriter of the classic era. Biography A native of Florence, Soffici moved to Argentina in the 1920s and began acting in 1931 and directing in 1935 on the ...

. The film premiered in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

. The film is often cited as one of the greatest in the history of Argentine cinema, and established Soffici as a "social" filmmaker. It was awarded by the Municipality of Buenos Aires as the best film of the year, and the

Silver Condor The Argentine Film Critics Association ( es, Asociación de Cronistas Cinematográficos de la Argentina) is an organization of Argentine-based journalists and correspondents. The association presents the ''Silver Condor Awards'' (''Premios Cóndor ...

Award instituted by the Argentine Association of Film Critics. It was selected as the greatest Argentine film of all time in the polls conducted by the

Museo del Cine Pablo Ducrós Hicken Museo del Cine Pablo Ducrós Hicken is a museum of cinema of Argentina located in Buenos Aires. It was established on 1971 and holds a collection of 65,000 reels of film. History The Cinema Museum of the City of Buenos Aires was created on O ...

in 1977 and 1984, while it ranked 6th in the 2000 edition. In a new version of the survey organized in 2022 by the specialized magazines ''La vida util'', ''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 fes ...

, the film reached the 19th position.

Cast

Homero Cárpena Homero Cárpena (14 February 1910 – 17 January 2001) was an Argentine film actor born in Mar del Plata. He appeared in 72 films between 1933 and 1972 although the bulk of his work was in the late 1930s and 1940s. He starred in '' El hombr ...

* Raúl De Lange * Roberto Fugazot *

Elisa Galvé Elisa Christian Galvé (July 20, 1922 in Buenos Aires – October 20, 2000 in Rome) was an Argentina, Argentine actress. She was best known for her roles in films in the 1940s and 1950s, during the Golden Age of Argentine cinema. She made her fi ...

as Andrea *

Ángel Magaña Ángel Magaña (August 24, 1915 – November 13, 1982) was an Argentina, Argentine film actor who appeared in some of Argentina's notable films of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. He was married to Nuri Montsé Filmography #Hotel de señoritas ( ...

as Esteban Podeley *

Pepito Petray Pepito, the diminutive version of the Spanish name Pepe, may refer to: * Pepito Arriola (1896–1954), Spanish child prodigy pianist and violinist * César Tovar (1940–1994), Major League Baseball player, nicknamed "Pepito" * ''Pepito'' (comics ...

Francisco Petrone Francisco Petrone (August 14, 1902 – March 11, 1967) was an Argentine film actor. He is best known for his roles in the 1940s in the classic film ''La Guerra Gaucha'' (1942) and '' A Real Man'' (''Todo un hombre'') (1943), for which he won t ...

as Köhner *

Félix Tortorelli Felix may refer to: * Felix (name), people and fictional characters with the name Places * Arabia Felix is the ancient Latin name of Yemen * Felix, Spain, a municipality of the province Almería, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, ...

Manuel Villoldo Manuel may refer to: People * Manuel (name) * Manuel (Fawlty Towers), a fictional character from the sitcom ''Fawlty Towers'' * Charlie Manuel, manager of the Philadelphia Phillies * Manuel I Komnenos, emperor of the Byzantine Empire * Manu ...

Restoration

In 2019, the Museo del Cine of Argentina, with the support of

Martin Scorsese's Martin Charles Scorsese ( , ; born November 17, 1942) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. Scorsese emerged as one of the major figures of the New Hollywood era. He is the recipient of many major accolades, incl ...

The Film Foundation The Film Foundation is a US-based non-profit organization dedicated to film preservation and the exhibition of restored and classic cinema. It was founded by director Martin Scorsese and several other leading filmmakers in 1990. The foundation ra ...

and the laboratory of the

Cineteca di Bologna The Cineteca di Bologna is a film archive in Bologna, Italy. It was founded on 18 May 1962. Since 1989, it has been a member of the Fédération internationale des archives du film (FIAF). It has been a member of the Association des cinémath ...

, restored "Prisoners of the Land" from two 35mm prints of the film found both in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

at the

Cinémathèque Française The Cinémathèque Française (), founded in 1936, is a French non-profit film organization that holds one of the largest archives of film documents and film-related objects in the world. Based in Paris's 12th arrondissement, the archive offers ...

and in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

at the

Czech Film Archive The National Film Archive (, abb. NFA) is a film archive located in Prague, Czech Republic. It was established in 1943 (From 1943 to 1945 known as Filmový archiv, from 1945 to 1989 Československý filmový ústav, then from 1990 to 1992 Český f ...

. The discovery of this two prints was crucial, due to the lack of a national cinematheque and protective cultural politics the original argentine negative was lost during the last century, and the only copy left in the country was a degraded 16mm. Paula Felix-Didier, head of the Museo del Cine and principal responsibility of the restoration, said about the significance of this new copy: "This is a new possibility of seeing one of the fundamental films of the history of Argentine cinema again as it had been decades ago could not be seen, and once again having a deep heritage rescue to understand the history of Argentine cinema and its evolution". This 2019 restoration was first shown at the Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival in

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language, Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 1 ...

and later, in December, it was first screened in Argentina at the

MALBA The Latin American Art Museum of Buenos Aires ( es, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, MALBA) is a museum located on Figueroa Alcorta Avenue, in the Palermo section of Buenos Aires. Created by Argentine businessman Eduardo Costantin ...

, in

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Prisioneros De La Tierra 1939 drama films 1939 films Argentine black-and-white films Argentine drama films Films directed by Mario Soffici 1930s Spanish-language films

Cast

Restoration

References

Further reading

External links