7 Boxes
(7 Cajas)
Juan Carlos Maneglia & Tana Schémbori / Paraguay / 2013 / 105 min
Goya Awards®
Best Iberoamerican Film NominationToronto International Film Festival
San Sebastian Film Festival
Youth Jury AwardMiami Film Festival
Audience AwardPalm Springs Film Festival
New Voices/New Visions Special Jury MentionSeattle International Film Festival
Related Films
Clandestine Childhood(Infancia Clandestina)Benjamin ÁvilaBenjamín Ávila’s Clandestine Childhood (Infancia Clandestina) is an earnestly heartfelt cine-memoir based on the director/co-writer’s own tragic ...
Black Bread(Pa Negre)Agustí VillarongaThe Spanish selection for the 89th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film, Black Bread is set in the war-ravaged Catalan countryside of the early 1940s ...
Bad Hair(Pelo Malo)Mariana RondónA nine-year-old boy’s preening obsession with straightening his hair elicits a tidal wave of homophobic panic in his hard-working mother, in this ...
La YumaFlorence JaugeyNicaragua’s first full-length feature in 20 years, La Yuma tells the story of a young woman who dreams of transcending her bleak life in the slums of ...
Father’s Chair(A Busca)Luciano MouraTheo is a successful doctor in the wealthy suburbs of São Paulo. Having always placed his job before his family, he is a failure as both a father and ...Pricing
Related Subjects
Download
Spanish, Guaraní and Korean with English subtitles
With Celso Franco, Víctor Sosa, Lali González, Nico García, Paletita, Manuel Portillo, Mario Toñanez, Nelly Dávalos
It’s Friday night in Asunción, Paraguay, and the temperature is sweltering. Víctor, a 17-year-old wheelbarrow delivery boy, dreams of fame and owning a fancy TV set from the infamous Mercado 4. He’s offered a chance to deliver seven boxes with unknown contents in exchange for a quick one hundred US dollars. But, what sounds like an easy job soon becomes complicated. Something in the boxes is highly coveted and Víctor and his pursuers quickly find themselves caught up in a crime they know nothing about.
Reminiscent of Slumdog Millionare, 7 Boxes was declared a film of cultural interest by the National Secretary of Culture of Paraguay.
7 BOXES IS ONE OF THE MANY FILMS INCLUDED IN THE CATALOGUE OF SPANISH FILM CLUB. SFC AFFILIATED UNIVERSITIES CAN TAKE ADVANTAGE OF A SPECIAL PRICE OF $99 IF THE TITLE HAS BEEN INCLUDED IN THEIR SFC FESTIVAL. PLEASE CONTACT SFC STAFF AT FILMCLUB@PRAGDA.COM FOR MORE DETAILS.
WHAT SFC AFFILIATED UNIVERSITIES ARE SAYING
“The audience reacted very positively to the film. This was the most popular film I would say. The protagonists were the same age as my students and they were able to relate to the characters. They enjoyed the elements of comedy and the action. I thought it was an excellent film as it depicts several different dimensions of society from Paraguay.” – Alexandra Martinez PhD., Assistant Professor, Jacksonville State University
“The audience LOVED this film. The gasped, laughed or shrieked according to what was happening on screen…It was definitely a wonderful film to start off the festival and to include in a festival line-up. Many students commented on the Guarani and Spanish bilingual nature of the film. It caused a lot of interest in Paraguay and indigenous languages of the Americas.” – K. Angelique Dwyer, Assistant Professor of Spanish & Latin American Studies, Gustavus Adolphus College
Press
“Genre-film bliss…The storytelling confidence, unaffected acting, and, above all, a heightened grasp of plotting and logistics on display in 7 Boxes is astonishing.” – Kurt Halfyard, TWITCH
“A wild and cunningly plotted chase movie…rollicking entertainment.” – Robert Koehler, VARIETY
“Grade: A The Fast and the Furious with wheelbarrows, Paraguayan action-thriller-romance hybrid 7 Boxes is a rollicking good time at the movies that offers breathtaking action and suspense, humor and appealing characters all in one visually flashy package.” – Boyd Van Hoeij, INDIEWIRE
“I’d actually suggest that 7 Boxes is better [than Slumdog Millionaire]; it’s got a better sense of real place, of action, of pacing…I felt the same vibe I did from Reservoir Dogs or El Mariachi or Primer… hurtling action and camerawork so deft in the heat of the moment you almost –almost– don’t notice how good it is…it’s a thriller with life, heart and excitement coursing through it until you can feel the power of the passion that made the film it sputtering off every frame like sparks from a roaring fire.” – James Rocchi, MSN
“Filmmakers Juan Carlos Maneglia and Tana Schembori keep the chase going at a fever pitch…this powerful and unusual action film is recommended.” – T. Keogh, VIDEOLIBRARIAN
“The audience reacted very positively to the film. This was the most popular film I would say. The protagonists were the same age as my students and they were able to relate to the characters. They enjoyed the elements of comedy and the action. I thought it was an excellent film as it depicts several different dimensions of society from Paraguay.” – Alexandra Martinez PhD., Assistant Professor, Jacksonville State University
“The audience LOVED this film. The gasped, laughed or shrieked according to what was happening on screen…It was definitely a wonderful film to start off the festival and to include in a festival line-up. Many students commented on the Guarani and Spanish bilingual nature of the film. It caused a lot of interest in Paraguay and indigenous languages of the Americas.” – K. Angelique Dwyer, Assistant Professor of Spanish & Latin American Studies, Gustavus Adolphus College
About the Director
The Maneglia-Schémbori duo originates from the strong passion that Juan Carlos Maneglia and Tana Schémbori have for film. Consequently the short films, telefilms and tv series they produce seek to find their own language and to install a national cinematography to identify them.
They join to work together formally for the first time in 1990 with the TV miniseries La Disputa. Since then, they have made together several successful materials for TV, video, and cinema.
Over the years, Juan Carlos and Tana, with their talent and ability, have inspired others to follow the same path. The challenges continue, and their loyalty to fiction TV too, the goal now is to translate it on the big screen with their first feature film: 7 Boxes.
Notes on Film
Juan Carlos Maneglia has always been a constant visitor to the Market 4 of Asuncion, and since 2004, fascinated by the place and its inhabitants, he begins observing the wheelbarrow men of the Market. He starts, then tracing the first drafts of the 7 Boxes plot, and like a Ñanduti fabric (needlepoint applied in Paraguayan crafts), intertwining thread by thread a suspense story.
In every Market around the world, the common denominator is that everyone goes to buy there: the rich and poor, regardless age, race or culture. “If you want to know how a country eats and lives then visit its local market”.
7 Boxes shows exactly that: the environment of the Asunción Central Market, an underworld with its own codes, particular characters and places with a visual richness as never seen before in the big screen.
The Market number 4 covers about eight blocks in the middle of the city, and at first glance, its hallways are never ending. It is home to about 500 people, but commercially serves to around 2000. It´s the place where Koreans, Chinese, Arabs, Jews and Paraguayans coexist. And there, everything is for sale: fruits, vegetables, electronics, cell phones, clothing and sometimes, even dignity.
In 7 Boxes we see the market and its inhabitants, those who survive with almost nothing, with diverse needs that varies from saving food costs, buying with pending urgency a medicine, paying the usurer an old debt, buying tickets to a raffle they know they will win, raising money to a birth and a funeral. You pay to live. And to die as well.