Epitafios
Encyclopedia
Epitafios is a 2004 13 episode
, Argentinian
crime fiction
TV mini-series with the tagline: El Final Está Escrito ... The End Is Written. The series, which takes place in an unnamed South America
n city, was shot in Buenos Aires
.
The series was produced by HBO Latin America and Argentinian TV/film
company Pol-Ka Producciones
. It was written by Marcelo Slavich and Walter Slavich and directed by Alberto Lecchi
and Jorge Nisco
. Although all of the actors were Argentinian, a neutral Spanish
was used instead of the local Rioplatense Spanish
, avoiding colloquialism
s such as the local vos in favor of the more common tú.
The series debuted in Australia
on SBS
in May 2007 under the title If The Dead Could Speak. It premiered in Poland
on Cinemax
on November 6, 2008. In Germany
, it premiered on November 6, 2009 on pay TV channel FOX
under the title Epitafios - Tod Ist Die Antwort (Epitafios - Death Is The Answer).
Renzo Márquez (played by Julio Chávez
) and psychiatrist
Laura Santini (played by Paola Krum
). To add a further twist to this whodunit
(although it is has many elements of a whydunit), Márquez and Santini are on-again, off-again lovers.
In the second half of the series, Renzo is aided by a homicide detective, Marina Segal (portrayed by Cecilia Roth
), who herself is eventually held hostage by Costas. During her captivity, the psychopathic murderer forces her to kill her mother who'd left the family for another man years before, causing Marina's father to commit suicide
. Her troubled childhood has led Marina to seek thrills by playing high-stakes Russian Roulette
. It's as the corpses
of her defeated adversaries begin to surface, she is assigned to the case.
), on April 19, 2009. It premiered in the U.S. on HBO on September 22, 2010. As with the first, this series stars Julio Chávez
and Cecilia Roth
, this time on the trail of a killer played by Leonardo Sbaraglia
.
Episode
An episode is a part of a dramatic work such as a serial television or radio program. An episode is a part of a sequence of a body of work, akin to a chapter of a book. The term sometimes applies to works based on other forms of mass media as well, as in Star Wars...
, Argentinian
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
crime fiction
Crime fiction
Crime fiction is the literary genre that fictionalizes crimes, their detection, criminals and their motives. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as science fiction or historical fiction, but boundaries can be, and indeed are, blurred...
TV mini-series with the tagline: El Final Está Escrito ... The End Is Written. The series, which takes place in an unnamed South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
n city, was shot in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
.
The series was produced by HBO Latin America and Argentinian TV/film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
company Pol-Ka Producciones
Pol-ka
Pol-ka Producciones is a television and film production company in Buenos Aires, Argentina, commonly referred to as Pol-ka.The company was launched in 1994 and is owned by Adrián Suar and Fernando Blanco...
. It was written by Marcelo Slavich and Walter Slavich and directed by Alberto Lecchi
Alberto Lecchi
Alberto Lecchi is an Argentine film, screenwriter and film producer.Born in Buenos Aires, Lecchi started working in Argentine cinema in 1979, as a second assistant director to Hugo Sofovich in the three films he directed that year...
and Jorge Nisco
Jorge Nisco
- Career :Jorge Nisco started his career in 1997, when he met actor Adrián Suar, who pitched him an idea for a TV show called "R.R.D.T". The show starred name actors Carlos Calvo, China Zorrilla, José "Pepe" Soriano, Nancy Dupláa and Diego Peretti, and brought Nisco to prominence in the Argentine...
. Although all of the actors were Argentinian, a neutral Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
was used instead of the local Rioplatense Spanish
Rioplatense Spanish
Rioplatense Spanish or River Plate Spanish is a dialectal variant of the Spanish language spoken mainly in the areas in and around the Río de la Plata basin of Argentina and Uruguay, and also in Rio Grande do Sul, although features of the dialect are shared with the varieties of Spanish spoken...
, avoiding colloquialism
Colloquialism
A colloquialism is a word or phrase that is common in everyday, unconstrained conversation rather than in formal speech, academic writing, or paralinguistics. Dictionaries often display colloquial words and phrases with the abbreviation colloq. as an identifier...
s such as the local vos in favor of the more common tú.
The series debuted in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
on SBS
SBS TV
SBS One is a national public television channel in Australia. Launched on 24 October 1980, it is the responsibility of SBS's television division, and is available nationally...
in May 2007 under the title If The Dead Could Speak. It premiered in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
on Cinemax
Cinemax
Cinemax, sometimes abbreviated as simply "Max", is a collection of premium television networks that broadcasts primarily feature films, along with softcore erotica, original action series, documentaries and special behind-the-scenes features. Cinemax is operated by Home Box Office, Inc., a...
on November 6, 2008. In Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, it premiered on November 6, 2009 on pay TV channel FOX
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
under the title Epitafios - Tod Ist Die Antwort (Epitafios - Death Is The Answer).
Plot
Bruno Costas (played by Antonio Birabent) seeks revenge on the people involved in the death of four high-school students during a hostage situation gone bad, five years before. The show's two protagonists are ex-detectiveDetective
A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes"...
Renzo Márquez (played by Julio Chávez
Julio Chávez
Julio Chávez is a well-known Argentine film and television actor.He was born Julio Hirsch in Buenos Aires, and received his first film role in 1973...
) and psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
Laura Santini (played by Paola Krum
Paola Krum
Paola Krum was born Andrea Paola Krum on June 20, 1970 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is an actress, singer, and dancer, and is one of the many young, multi-talented Argentine performers of the present day. She has studied theater, dance, and voice since she was 10. Her breakthrough came in the...
). To add a further twist to this whodunit
Whodunit
A whodunit or whodunnit is a complex, plot-driven variety of the detective story in which the puzzle is the main feature of interest. The reader or viewer is provided with clues from which the identity of the perpetrator of the crime may be deduced before the solution is revealed in the final...
(although it is has many elements of a whydunit), Márquez and Santini are on-again, off-again lovers.
In the second half of the series, Renzo is aided by a homicide detective, Marina Segal (portrayed by Cecilia Roth
Cecilia Roth
Cecilia Roth is an Argentine actress.Her father, Abrasha Rotenberg , a Jewish immigrant from the Soviet Ukraine, is an editor and a journalist. He met Cecilia's mother, an Argentinian singer of Sephardic descent Dina Rot, in Argentina. Cecilia Roth has made appearances in numerous television series...
), who herself is eventually held hostage by Costas. During her captivity, the psychopathic murderer forces her to kill her mother who'd left the family for another man years before, causing Marina's father to commit suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
. Her troubled childhood has led Marina to seek thrills by playing high-stakes Russian Roulette
Russian roulette
Russian roulette is a potentially lethal game of chance in which participants place a single round in a revolver, spin the cylinder, place the muzzle against their head and pull the trigger...
. It's as the corpses
Cadaver
A cadaver is a dead human body.Cadaver may also refer to:* Cadaver tomb, tomb featuring an effigy in the form of a decomposing body* Cadaver , a video game* cadaver A command-line WebDAV client for Unix....
of her defeated adversaries begin to surface, she is assigned to the case.
Cast
- Julio ChávezJulio ChávezJulio Chávez is a well-known Argentine film and television actor.He was born Julio Hirsch in Buenos Aires, and received his first film role in 1973...
: Renzo Márquez - Paola KrumPaola KrumPaola Krum was born Andrea Paola Krum on June 20, 1970 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is an actress, singer, and dancer, and is one of the many young, multi-talented Argentine performers of the present day. She has studied theater, dance, and voice since she was 10. Her breakthrough came in the...
: Laura Santini - Antonio Birabent : Bruno Costas
- David Masajnik : Martin
- Cecilia RothCecilia RothCecilia Roth is an Argentine actress.Her father, Abrasha Rotenberg , a Jewish immigrant from the Soviet Ukraine, is an editor and a journalist. He met Cecilia's mother, an Argentinian singer of Sephardic descent Dina Rot, in Argentina. Cecilia Roth has made appearances in numerous television series...
: Marina Segal - Luis LuqueLuis LuqueLuis Luque is an Argentine film and television actor.He has made over 40 appearances in film and television in Argentina since 1982 in which he appeared in Aprender a vivir....
: Commissaire Jiménez - Villanueva Cosse : Marcos Márquez
Second Series
A second season of the series - this one's tagline being: El Final Ahora Tiene Dos Caras ... The End Now Has Two Faces - began airing on HBO Latin America in Argentina (and elsewhere in Latin AmericaLatin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
), on April 19, 2009. It premiered in the U.S. on HBO on September 22, 2010. As with the first, this series stars Julio Chávez
Julio Chávez
Julio Chávez is a well-known Argentine film and television actor.He was born Julio Hirsch in Buenos Aires, and received his first film role in 1973...
and Cecilia Roth
Cecilia Roth
Cecilia Roth is an Argentine actress.Her father, Abrasha Rotenberg , a Jewish immigrant from the Soviet Ukraine, is an editor and a journalist. He met Cecilia's mother, an Argentinian singer of Sephardic descent Dina Rot, in Argentina. Cecilia Roth has made appearances in numerous television series...
, this time on the trail of a killer played by Leonardo Sbaraglia
Leonardo Sbaraglia
Leonardo Máximo Sbaraglia is a prominent Argentine film actor, with extensive credits in both Argentina and Spain.He has also worked in Mexico, and was cast in his first English-language role in Red Lights.-Life and work:...
.