Spotlight on argentine cinema

For over 20 years, introverted hardware store owner Roberto (Ricardo Darín of the Oscar-winning The Secret in Their Eyes) has lived virtually shut off from the outside world. Roberto’s orderly yet lonely existence is disrupted when Jun, a young man from China stumbles into his path. Jun has just landed in Buenos Aires in search of his uncle, his only living relative, but does not speak a word of Spanish. Roberto suddenly finds himself the custodian of this stranger as he is unwillingly caught up in Jun’s predicament.

This film portrays the incredible estela de Carlotto from her life as a contented school teacher, wife, and mother to her devastation at the disappearance of her daughter and subsequent abduction of her grandson by the Argentine military, to her political awakening as a leader of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo. A profoundly emotional portrait of a woman who transformed her pain into a force for human rights and whose struggle became a symbol in Argentina and around the world.

Every day, eloy delivers a hundred judicial notifications and is put in contact with 100 stories. Now far from the promise of his youth, he has become an alienated and desensitized civil servant trapped in an eternally repeating present. That is until a series of events leads him into the depths of the city, towards some extravagant and timeless characters, and the most profound experiences of his life. each notification becomes a domino piece that will fall with the same force as his own convictions.

Ale is a transvestite who lives in a marginalized community of gay and trans people in Buenos Aires who are facing eviction. One evening while collecting cardboard on the street, Ale finds Mia’s diary, hastily discarded by her grieving husband. Reading about her life, Ale is transported to another world and decides she must return the diary to Mia’s ten-year-old daughter. Thus begins this deeply moving drama that reveals a profoundly human desire to care for others in spite of all odds.

Leonardo, a successful industrial designer, lives with his family in an architectural wonder, a mid-century modern Le Corbusier home. One morning, he wakes to the noise of a sledgehammer and is appalled to discover that workers next door are constructing a large window that faces directly into his house. The free-spirited neighbour, Victor, is very friendly, yet obstinate at the same time as he refuses to bend to Leonardo’s demands.

In a small town in Córdoba, Argentina, three childhood friends, Malena, Pablo, and Tomás, rock out on a makeshift stage to a roomful of screaming, enthusiastic fans. However, the chemistry that fires their music has a depth and perplexity to it that none of them is quite ready to face. In the next few hours, the friends will part and a new day will begin, but the angst-laden emotion of teenage desire is not so predictable nor so easily contained.

In 1965, the Argentine conceptual artist León Ferrari created a figure of Jesus Christ crucified on the wings of a US fighter jet, entitled “Western Christian Civilization,” as a symbolic protest against the Vietnam War. The piece marked a turning point in the Argentine art scene, and Ferrari’s work became associated with a radical criticism of certain Western ideologies.

The high art world of Buenos Aires receives a biting, yet humorous take down in this satire. The story revolves around Jorge Ramírez, a nurse who works at a retirement home. After observing one of the residents compulsively drawing, he decides to steal the sketches and submit them to the art gallery as his own to see if they are worth anything. Before Jorge can say ‘art brut,’ he becomes the hottest artist on the scene. As he is catapulted to the top of the international art world, he must navigate through a throng of doting curators, collectors, and critics.

At a table in a small town bar, a strange visitor offers a man an unusual deal: one million dollars in exchange for reliving ten years of his past from whichever time period he chooses. And, when he returns to the present, it will be as though no time has passed at all. At sixty years of age, ernesto Zambrana is feeling fed up with the humdrum nature of his life. Without thinking twice about the consequences, he embarks on this extraordinary adventure which, independent of the outcome, will change his life forever. A darkly comic gem of a thriller with genius performances.