Lucila Balzaretti

Lucila Balzaretti

Born: August 21, 1920
Died: February 13, 2012
in Zürich, Switzerland
Lucila Balzaretti (registered at birth as Lucila Balzaretti Openzeller, also known as Lucila Alarcón; Zurich, Switzerland, August 21, 1920 - Puntarenas, Costa Rica, February 13, 2012) was a Swiss actress and journalist. She participated in the theater group La Linterna Mágica under the direction of Ignacio Retes.

She ventured into journalism by writing a film column in the newspaper El Popular and in the magazine México al día, where José Revueltas and other writers also collaborated. In 1942, while preparing a report on the play El inspector, then directed by Seki Sano, she met Ignacio Retes, whom she married two years later. In 1946 she participated in the founding of La Linterna Mágica and made her debut as an actress in the play Mariana Pineda (1946) under the pseudonym of Lucila Alarcón. Shortly after, she acted in Los zorros (1946), Israel (1948) and Santa Juana (1948), all directed by Retes himself. Later she left her stage name to continue appearing as Lucila Balzaretti in the plays El aria de la locura (1953), Terminal (Bus stop), Una ciudad para vivir (1954), La feria distante (1955), A media luz los tres (1957) and Nacida ayer (1958), among others. She also had a brief participation in one of the revivals of A Streetcar Named Desire, a Seki Sano version.

She was the mother of film director Gabriel Retes, with whom she participated in the films Chin Chin el teporocho, El bulto, Flores de Papel, Arresto domiciliario.

Movies for Lucila Balzaretti...

House Arrest
Title: House Arrest
Character: Lucila
Released: December 5, 2008
Type: Movie
Because of a millionaire fraud, a man is condemned to house arrest, and the only place where he can serve sentence is his mother’s house, affected with Alzheimer disease. The arrival of the man disrupts the life of the people who live with the elder woman. With turns of the screw, the story feels dramatic, but it also contains certain amount of irony. It talks about human and family relations with a total absence of violence.
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Coup at Daybreak
Title: Coup at Daybreak
Character: Luisa
Released: September 16, 1998
Type: Movie
The film follows the events of the night of February 4, 1992 in Caracas, Venezuela. That night a group of military rebels staged a coup d'etat. Venezuelans found themselves as virtual prisoners. As the coup starts and fighting takes place from a military base which is in the center of the city's most affluent areas, with both luxury high rises and palatial mansions. The area of La Carlota provides a wealth of very interesting, often flamboyant and typical characters of the Latin America upper middle and upper classes. They are among the most affected. Various vignettes in these different characters' homes are developed. These people's reactions, lifestyles, vices, and humanity come out in a very honest fashion under duress.
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El asesinato
Title: El asesinato
Character: Sra. Ramírez
Released: January 1, 1997
Type: Movie
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Katuwira, donde nacen y mueren los sueños
Title: Katuwira, donde nacen y mueren los sueños
Character: Vecina
Released: December 18, 1996
Type: Movie
Sofia meets a stranger man who hacks the computer system where she works before she has an accident. After the accident, she is the only one that remember seeing this man, so she decides to search for him.
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Sucesos distantes
Title: Sucesos distantes
Character: Mama Febre
Released: August 9, 1996
Type: Movie
One couple (Carlos & Irene) are having troubles, because he suspects that Irene's hiding something about her past in Russia. To make things worst her ex-husband goes to Mexico and tells Carlos that her other ex-husband also is going to claim her as his property.
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Bienvenido-Welcome
Title: Bienvenido-Welcome
Character: Union Delegate
Released: August 17, 1995
Type: Movie
During a business trip a married man has an affair with a blonde who leaves him the message "Welcome to the world of Aids"
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El Bulto
Title: El Bulto
Character: Grandma
Released: August 28, 1992
Type: Movie
After being in a comma for 20 year, Lauro (Retes) wakes up in a very different Mexico than the one he lived on. Ideas, hopes, ways-of-life and customs have changed, and Mexicans of the nineties are strangers for a man sleeping since 1971. Lauro will have to deal with the changes brought by the History, and will have to accept that the future is never as we imagined it when we were young.
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Hard Years: The birth of a guerrilla fighter
Title: Hard Years: The birth of a guerrilla fighter
Character: La maestra
Released: August 30, 1989
Type: Movie
The lives of Rolo, Chino and Boby take different courses since the student movement of the 60’s. Some years later, the friends meet again. Rolo has turned into a guerrilla fighter, Boby into a businessman and Chino into an embittered and solitary man.
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Wild Women
Title: Wild Women
Released: August 23, 1984
Type: Movie
Women escape from prison to search for a treasure whose location has been revealed to them by a dying old woman.
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Broken Flag
Title: Broken Flag
Character: Conchita
Released: June 21, 1979
Type: Movie
When a group of young filmmakers witness and film a crime of passion, the most outrageous blackmail of the century begins. By means of a fantastic plan, the filmmakers send to the murderer, a financial and industrial big shot, a copy of the movie that incriminates him and they demand him an improvement of the standard of living for the working class.
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New World
Title: New World
Released: August 10, 1978
Type: Movie
Towards the end of the 16th century, the Spanish conquerors living in the New World faced a serious problem: the evangelization of the indigenous people, who did not understand or accept Christianity due to their unshakable faith in their own religion. The court of the Inquisition cracks down on heretics and the natives prepare for a general uprising ...
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Paper Flowers
Title: Paper Flowers
Released: February 1, 1978
Type: Movie
On the thinnest of pretexts, a horde of homeless people descend on the apartments of two members of the comfortable middle class and proceed to loot and vandalize both homes, leaving the next morning with many of the belongings they found there, as well as one of the residents who has opted to join them. This political allegory is based on two plays by the Chilean playwright Egon Wolff.
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Cuartelazo
Title: Cuartelazo
Character: Esposa de Banquero (uncredited)
Released: May 4, 1977
Type: Movie
Narration of one of the bloodiest episodes of the Mexican national history, The Tragic Ten, beginning when General Victoriano Huerta sent to kill President Francisco I. Madero, Vice President José María Pino Suárez and Senator Belisario Dominguez. The film recreates the moment of the execution at the hands of Huerta and his accomplices Bernardo Reyes, Félix Díaz and Manuel Mondragón.
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El reventón
Title: El reventón
Released: February 3, 1977
Type: Movie
Wild-partying hippie-artist-dilettantes end up forming a revolutionary terrorist cell. The misfit Gato loses a lot of money in bets and his father throws him out of his house. Ál leaves his girlfriend Laura for his lover, the married Adriana. Out of money Gato and Ál becomes urban guerrilla when they plan to kidnap Gato's rich father.
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Chin-Chin el Teporocho
Title: Chin-Chin el Teporocho
Released: August 15, 1976
Type: Movie
Rogelio’s story, a young man of humble origin in the neighborhood of Tepito, who falls in love with the daughter of a wealthy grocer, Michelle, but his marriage to her will be a failure and he will end up as a one more drunk.
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Tribulaciones en el seno de una familia burguesa
Title: Tribulaciones en el seno de una familia burguesa
Released: January 1, 1973
Type: Movie
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The Hard Years
Title: The Hard Years
Released: January 1, 1973
Type: Movie
Three boys, after participating in the events of 1968 in Mexico, find themselves in the need to get away from the social struggle