Diablo Rosso
ARCOmadrid 2017

Lotteries conjure up ideas of chance, destiny and the remote possibility that one’s circumstances could change drastically from one minute to the next. But Panama’s National Lottery possesses an additional layer of mystery and intrigue because numbers are hidden within the lottery balls, which are chosen and twisted open in elaborate and highly ceremonial public drawings. In Lottery, Panamanian National Lottery balls double as turtle eggs, mothballs, pearls, pills, Chinese dumplings and fruit, the spherical mystery objects propelling the interwoven dreamlike sequences inhabited by two anonymous characters. In each sequence, one or both characters encounter white spheres in uncanny and strangely unsettling circumstances. As the parallel stories unfold, they discover that the spheres are, in fact, lottery balls, and come closer and closer to finally revealing the secret hidden within them. A symbolic framework begins to emerge, linking the formal and iconic properties of the enigmatic spheres within a meta-narrative flux about existence as a continuous and unpredictable gamble between life and death.

Lotería Lottery 2017 / HD / 16:9 / 4’ 10”