Saturday January 31 8pm

el bano del papa (the pope’s toilet)
15 cert, 98 mins  Uruguay/ Brazil / France 2007

Directed by César Charlone, Enrique Fernandez, Starring César Troncoso, Virginia Mendez, Mario Silva
Completing our trio El Bano del Papa is a small but perfectly formed comedy about a community hoping to cash in – both materially and spiritually - on the forthcoming visit of His Holiness to their rural Uruguayan town.

Beto is a financially strapped chancer, a petty smuggler scraping together a living sneaking things across the border between Uruguay and Brazil. He decides to capitalise on the most basic needs of the anticipated hoards by installing a pucker porcelain flushable throne and charging the better class of Catholic for the privilege of using it.

The film follows his mad cap efforts to get his toilet in place in time, his dealings with border officials, and also the efforts of the community at large in preparation for The Arrival, an event so hyped it seems doomed to anticlimax.

This is a charming comedy, a portrait of hope in spite of circumstance, but it is also shrewd, humane and unsentimental about Beto and his community. It pulls few punches as to the reality of these lives and the desperation that underpins their flamboyant entrepreneurial efforts.

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