Dana Rotberg
Directing
Biography
Dana Rotberg Rotschild (b. 11 Augiust 1960), better known simply as Dana Rotberg, is a Mexican film director and screenwriter based in Auckland, New Zealand. Born in Mexico City, she began her career with the documentary Elvira Luz Cruz, pena máxima (1985), followed by the feature Intimidad (1989). Her second feature, Ángel de fuego (1992), screened in the Directors’ Fortnight section of the 1992 Cannes Film Festival. Rotberg later wrote and directed Otilia Rauda (2001), which received a Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Award in 2000. She returned to international attention with White Lies (2013), adapted from Medicine Woman by Witi Ihimaera; the film won her the WIFTs International Visionary Award for Best Director and was selected as New Zealand’s submission for the 86th Academy Awards (Best Foreign Language Film).
Known For
Four nuns are raped by a group of lepers. Although they all turn out to be pregnant, their status is hidden from them in the convent.
The Humiliated
The young trapeze artist Alma is part of the show of a miserable traveling circus. In an act of desperation, Alma commits incest with her father, a sick clown obsessed with the woman who abandoned them. Determined to have his child, Alma leaves the circus and joins a group of preachers led by Refugio, a woman who performs puppet shows with biblical passages in poor neighborhoods.
Ángel de fuego
A medicine woman - a giver of life - is asked to hide a secret which may protect one life but which will destroy another.
White Lies
An alcoholic Bosnian poet sends his wife and daughter away from Sarajevo so they can avoid the troubles there. However, he is soon descended upon by a pair of orphaned brothers. The brothers have escaped a massacre in their own village and have come to the Bosnian capital in search of a long lost Aunt. The poet befriends the boys and together they try to survive the horror of the siege of Sarajevo.
The Perfect Circle
On the beach lies the body of Claudio O'Riley, heir to a monopoly shrimp, and his voice recounts his rise to power: the incestuous relationship with his sister, the degrading treatment to their partners and so on.
The Wrath of a God
A hen-pecked husband, so timid that he doesn’t even dare to drive a car, embarks on an affair with a much younger woman (played by Lisa Owen), who lives in the same apartment building as him and his wife. Eventually, he finds that the young woman is just as demanding as his difficult wife.
Intimidad
Luz is in jail, accused of murdering her own children. Her husband and her mother-in-law say she killed them in cold blood. Dr. Rebollar tries to help the woman, but she refuses to remember anything. Luz thinks of jail as the purgatory: it's only one step to reach the Heaven.
Luz's Motives
While touring the towns, two revelers meet a beautiful woman who awakens greed and passion in both.
Three of Cups
Otilia is both blessed with a body that is the epitome of feminine perfection and cursed by an ugly mole that mars her beautiful face.
Otilia Rauda
Elvira Luz Cruz was accused of killing her children. The filmmakers interview neighbours, the father, the mother-in-law, the psycologist and the lawyer that defended her.
Elvira Luz Cruz, Maximum Sentence
To fullfill his responsibilities or defying his brother and embarking on a small three-wheeled adventure-that's the dilemma for a 10-year-old boy on a lonely coast in Mexico.