Homage to Vlasta Lah: Pula Honours Its Film Pioneer
Pula Film Festival brings a special Homage to Vlasta Lah (1913-1978), one of the most important pioneers of Latin American cinema. Born in Pula, Vlasta Lah left an indelible mark on the history of film as the first woman to direct an Argentine feature sound film, and today her work is being rediscovered and valued as an important contribution to world film heritage
Vlasta Lah spent her childhood in Pula and left for Rome to study acting and directing in in 1930, moving to Argentina in 1938 and starting her career in film. In 1960, after many years of working as assistant director and head of the first Argentine film school, she directed the film The Furies, thereby entering the history of Argentine cinema. Three years later, she directed The Models, a film that today stands out with its powerful female perspective and is considered one of the early feminist achievements of Latin American film. With three programmes, the Festival will present the life and artistic creation of an author whose work and heritage had for years been unjustly forgotten, but have in recent years been rediscovered thanks to the research of Argentine film historians Candela Vey and Martín Miguel Pereira.
The programme will open on 16 July at 6 p.m. at the Istrian National Theatre with the Croatian premiere of the documentary film Vlasta, the Memory Is not Everlasting (2025), which follows the exciting research quest for the life and work of this extraordinary director from Pula to Buenos Aires, where she wrote film history.
After the screening, there will be a panel discussion led by Boško Picula, with participation from authors of the film Candela Vey and Martín Miguel Pereira, film critic Pablo de Vita, and communication expert and film critic Alemka Lisinski.
Croatian premieres of the two feature films directed by Vlasta Lah will follow at Valli Cinema: at 7 p.m. on 18 July, the screening of The Furies (1960), her historical directorial debut that exposes complex relationships, power, and family conflicts through a story of five women, and the following day, at 7 p.m. on 19 July, the screening of The Models (1963), a drama about two women who are trying to find love and professional fulfilment without giving up their independence, recognised today as one of the pioneer feminist accomplishments of Argentine cinema.
Homage to Vlasta Lah is an opportunity for Pula to remember its fellow citizen whose path in life and art connected Europe and South America, and for the domestic audience to see for the first time all three films as Croatian premieres. The programme also gives back the deserved place to the author whose work was outside of the focus of film history for decades, but is today recognised as an important part of world cinema heritage.
