Latitude Zero

Our heroine, Lena, has been left by her lover, Colonel Mattos, eight months pregnant. She runs a lonely, out-of-the-way bar off a dusty ‘highway,’ but although a truck does ramble by every now and then, no one stops. Lena is bitter and the last thing she wants to see is a man. So when Vilelo, Mattos’s subordinate, shows up she is rather unpleasantly surprised and upset. But Vilelo has run off and has no other place to hide. He decides to make his stay more pleasant by transforming the ramshackle bar into a prospering business. There is every suggestion that Lena and Vilelo will get together, but that doesn’t take into account Lena’s unborn child, Vilelo’s unpredictability, the unbearably hot sun which saps energy and hope, nor the arid land capable of driving a person mad. (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)