FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 22, 2025

CINEMA GUILD ACQUIRES MATÍAS PIÑEIRO’S FESTIVAL FAVORITE YOU BURN ME

THREE EARLY PIÑEIRO FILMS ALSO SET FOR RELEASE FROM CINEMA GUILD IN THE YEAR AHEAD

NEW YORK, NY (April 23, 2024) – Cinema Guild announced today the acquisition of North American distribution rights for You Burn Me (Tú me abrasas), directed by Matías Piñeiro. The film had its world premiere at the Berlinale in February and won a special mention from the jury at Paris’s Cinéma du réel in March. Cinema Guild will release the film in theaters following its North American festival premiere later this year.

An adaptation of "Sea Foam," a chapter in Cesare Pavese's Dialogues with Leucò, Piñeiro's latest is an intimate and expansive meditation on death and desire and a thrilling exploration of the possibilities of adapting text to film. In "Sea Foam," Pavese stages a fictional dialogue between the ancient Greek poet Sappho and the nymph Britomartis (played by frequent Piñeiro collaborators Gabi Saidón and María Villar). Sappho has thrown herself into the ocean from heartbreak. Britomartis has fallen off a cliff into the water while fleeing a man. Reuniting at the shore, they discuss life, death and the bittersweet nature of desire.

But Piñeiro, known for his series of metatextual films dealing with the translation and performance of Shakespeare, is not content to simply restage a dialogue and instead infuses the film with footnotes and lacunae: the fragmentary poetry of Sappho, by whom only one complete poem still exists; the circumstances of Pavese's death, heartbroken in a Turin hotel room; and the science of sea foam with its connections to disease and fertility. In this ebb and flow of death and desire, You Burn Me introduces a game of translation and memorization, a game intrinsic to the moving image that may just save Sappho, Pavese, Piñeiro and the audience from oblivion.

"Matías Piñeiro is a true artist, a master of his craft who invents cinematic forms with each new film,” said Cinema Guild President Peter Kelly. "With You Burn Me, he’s crafted something so full of life it practically burns through the screen."

The deal was negotiated by Peter Kelly of Cinema Guild with the film’s producers.

Cinema Guild also announced the acquisition of three early films by Piñeiro: The Stolen Man (2007), They All Lie (2009) and Rosalinda (2010). They will be released on home video and digital alongside You Burn Me.

A premier distributor of world cinema, independent films and documentaries, Cinema Guild’s upcoming releases include Hong Sangsoo’s In Our Day, Angela Schanelec’s Music and the 4K restoration of Shinji Somai’s Moving. Recent releases include Bas Devos’ Here, Deborah Stratman’s Last Things and Laura Citarella’s Trenque Lauquen.

For press inquiries, please contact us at:

(212) 685-6242 or press at cinemaguild dot com

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