Set in decaying boudoirs and bloody dance halls, within the brutal confines of an oppressive regime and the back reaches of the protagonist’s mind, Magdalena Viraga is a tale of murder and crucifixion, alienation and friendship, past and present. It leaves us empty of hope but full of desire. It is a story of a story that cannot be told, a story that has been forgotten for all time; it is a tale of the Second Coming that has been and can never be.
In Menkes’s first feature, Tinka Menkes brilliantly portrays the inner life of an alienated sex worker, as she battles the walls which surround her—both material and psychic.
Winner of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association award for “Best
Independent/Experimental Film of the Year,” Magdalena Viraga
was featured in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Biennial as
well as in over 40 film festivals worldwide. (Nina Menkes, USA, 1986, 90 min.)
New restoration by Arbelos and the Academy Film Archive.
Co-presented with Eos World Fund.