True/False Films

Lucio

In person: co-director Jose Maria Goenega.

Sneak preview. Lucio Uturbia, whose life belongs at the very front of the stranger-than-fiction file, is best known in France as the bricklayer/con-artist/anarchist who brought the world's largest bank to its knees. But that's just a fraction of his story. A fugitive, raconteur, visionary and folk hero (fans called him "Basque Zorro" and the "good bandit"), Lucio aided radicals worldwide, including the Black Panthers, Baader-Meinhoff and Che Guevera. For years, he managed to duck the authorities and work full shifts mixing mortar and setting tile. Directors Aitor Arregi and Jose Mari Goenaga, both of whom have backgrounds in animation, reveal Lucio's surprises in imaginative, sweetly stylized ways; suffice to say that Lucio's the most compelling subversive you'll see on screen this year. "I was fortunate to have been poorer than poor, " this unlikely hellraiser tells the camera, "and so had no problem losing respect for the system." (JS)