Our Lady of the Assassins

La virgen de los sicarios (Our Lady of the Assassins) is Barbet Schroeder's first digital film. This technique gave Schroeder "a unique possibility to show a city: as everything in the picture is in focus, a close-up on a character shows the city in the background, very sharp, it takes on another importance than the character". It is also one of the first high definition films. "A lot of critics wrote that La virgen de los sicarios was filmed in the streets, ‘hand-held', whereas I used a steadycam, controlled all the colours and wrote the dialogues down to the last word!" (Barbet Schroeder). The film is tinged with a deep pessimism personified by the writer Fernando Vallejo, who looks coldly on as the country degenerates. A country that Barbet Schroeder knows well as he grew up there. "He films a hero full of hatred (of himself, of society, of life), suddenly gripped by love and who finally doesn't know what to do not to lose it" (Le Monde).