The “King of queer festivals,” San Francisco’s Frameline Film Festival is happening this week, letting audiences in to a unique world of LGBTQ cinema. Taking place through the 24th, Frameline is also going to be the stage where Peruvian writer-director Alvaro Delgado Aparicio L.’s feature Retablo will be screening. The first trailer for the father-son drama has dropped and doesn’t give audiences many answers, but plenty of tension.
The film follows Noé (Amiel Cayo) and his son, Segundo (Junior Béjar Roca). Noé is a painter known for handcrafting religious retablos. The trailer shows us several glimpses at these exquisite pieces of art, with Noé stating pieces “can’t be born in a hurry.” The two are seen living in a small, isolated village in the Peruvian mountains where their work is revered, highlighted by the large crowd taking in their latest art piece. But as the change in music, and Segundo’s increasingly frustrated face show, there’s more going on between the father and son we don’t see. The trailer doesn’t give indications of what has changed between Noé and Segundo from the beginning to the end of the 2-minute piece, though a plot synopsis elaborates on Segundo’s discovery of his father’s homosexual relationships.
The Retablo trailer certainly whets the appetite by not giving audiences’ the full story. There’s an air of menace, or at least confusion to the whole thing, that opens the door toward exploring sexuality and parenting choices. Aparicio L. was last at Frameline with his short feature The Companion, and Retablo received a special jury prize at the Berlin film festival this year.
To find out more about Retablo and the Frameline Film Festival be sure to visit their website.