"No deadpan comedy that I can think of has ever packed this much sensual punch; nor, for that matter, has one wound up taking itself so seriously by the end, but that is a small price to pay for all of the lascivious fun that leads up to the ironic, politically charged conclusion."
(Bob Strauss: Daily News, LA Edition, Sept. 27th, 2002)

Captain Pantaleon Pantoja, an outstanding, exemplary, happily married army man, is commissioned to organize The Visitors Service, an ambulatory prostitute system created to placate the sexual needs of soldiers assigned to distant posts in the Amazon Jungle. Pantaleon carries out this mission with obsessive efficiency and it becomes a resounding success. The appearance in his life of La Colombiana, a subduing mysterious woman, and becoming the victim of extortion by “El Sinchi” an influential and corrupt journalist, muddle Captain Pantaleon Pantoja’s objectives and mark the beginning of many conflicts that outline the story. Astride between comedy and drama, “Captain Pantoja and the Special Services” intends to be the scrupulous portrait of a character obsessed by retaliations and their rigorous fulfillment and, at the same time, to reflect on a merciless system based upon hypocritical values.

Producers: JOSE ENRIQUE CROUSILLAT & GERARDO HERRERO
Director: FRANCISCO J. LOMBARDI
Produced by: AMERICA PRODUCCIONES S.A.
Screenplay: GIOVANNA POLLAROLO & ENRIQUE MONCLOA
Based on a novel by: MARIO VARGAS LLOSA
Director of photography: TEODORO DELGADO
Cast: Salvador Del Solar, Angie Cepeda, Mónica Sánchez, Pilar Bardem & Gianfranco Brero

About the Author:

Mario Vargas Llosa is considered one of the most important and influential Latin American writers of all time. In his 1973 novel Pantaleon y las Visitadoras Mario Vargas Llosa points out the hypocrisy of the so-called exemplary institutions before the oldest profession in the world. This extraordinary novel presents the eternal debate between truth and lies, needs and virtues, and the dangerous consequences that the rigorous observance of duty can bring. Majestically conceived and assembled, Pantaleon y las Visitadoras, is a turn in the narrative work of Mario Vargas Llosa: the social realism present in his first literary work gives way to a precise sense of humor, satire and irony which will significantly enrich the development of his peculiar literary universe. After the film adaptation of this novel twenty-five years later, Vargas Llosa brought out the present human factor at all levels that made possible the creation of such a moving film. Behaving like a “proud father” Mario Vargas Llosa was very impressed with the film, adding that director Francisco de Lombardi had captured
the realism of the immensity of the Amazon, where the personalities of the Iquitos come through with their music, sensuality and life but also their poverty and isolation, which combined maintain the integrity of the story.

Location: Madstone Movie Theaters (7510 Hazard Center Drive in Mission Valley)

Tickets: $8 General Admission / $6 Students, Seniors & Members

• Individual tickets can be purchased prior to each screening at the Madstone Movie Theaters box office

Rated R. For Mature audiences only.

Distributed by:

Julio Noriega
Film Division Manager
Venevision International Films
550 Biltmore Way, Suite 1180
Coral Gables, FL 33134
Phone:305-442-3411
Fax: 305-448-4762
Please visit our site www.venevisionintl.com

Sponsors for Cinema en Tu Idioma include:

• Univision KBNT-TV Ch. 17
  
  
  
• El Latino San Diego
  
• Grupo Uniradio
  • 1470 AM "Radio Unica"
    
    
    
  • 99.7 FM "La Invasora"
    
    
    
  • 107.3 FM "Pulsar"