Today from 18:00-21.00 hrs, the UvA Film Club will continue their weekly screening in HVL/BuzzHouse’s Co-Working Space! This week's film is La Paloma (1974), with an introduction by Fien Limburg.

A film bookended by the hermaphroditic angel of “Imagination”, attempting to describe the plot of Daniel Schmid’s junk shop jewel La Paloma (1974) does little to to illuminate its essence. The film is a paean to the immortal career-muse Ingrid Caven, who plays the titular La Paloma, a cabaret performer in the Weimarian spirit of Marlene Dietrich. La Paloma is relentlessly courted by a devoted fan and rich heir (Peter Kern). Addled by a mysterious malady, she wrongfully thinks love will be her salvation, cementing her inevitable fate within his Swiss family mansion. The film essentially stages a drama of fatal diva worship in the cast of romantic pursuit. It is a dense, heavy palimpsest of its high camp heritage. Schmid is a relatively marginal director who has fallen into the shadow of Rainer Werner Fassbinder. However, Schmid is a true votary of beauty and glamour in his own right, and wields a distinctly morbid fairy-tale touch. La Paloma is a film for those with a fondness for the fringe, a dusty treasure coruscating from relative obscurity.