Five films to see at the Argen­tine Film Fes­ti­val 2016

Cel­e­brat­ing the best in con­tem­po­rary Argen­tine cin­e­ma, the fifth Argen­tine Film Fes­ti­val opens with a pre­view screen­ing of Pablo Trapero’s The Clan in Lon­don on 18 August. Over a long week­end spread out across four venues, the fes­ti­val invites audi­ences to indulge in a vari­ety of cin­e­ma from the South Amer­i­can coun­try and the sur­round­ing region. Here are our top five pro­gramme picks.

In addi­tion to The Clan, the fes­ti­val is this year pre­sent­ing a spe­cial Pablo Trap­ero dou­ble bill. Crane World, from 1999, is the sto­ry of Rulo (Luis Mar­gani), a fan­ta­sist con­front­ed by the real­i­ty of loos­ing his job. Told in black-and-white, the film has a dis­tinct­ly gor­geous but grit­ty visu­al style. Made three years lat­er, El Bonaerense sees lock­smith Zapa (Jorge Román) forced to leave his fam­i­ly and home behind to find work in Buenos Aries, fol­low­ing the strange fic­tion that becomes Zapa’s life as a police officer.

Ariel Rot­ters’ acclaimed 2015 fea­ture sees a sin­gle moth­er of twin girls strug­gling to rebuild her life after a car crash which result­ed in the loss of her hus­band and broth­er. Anoth­er film shot in sump­tu­ous mono­chrome, Inci­dent Light is a gen­tle, inti­mate film and learn­ing how to live with tragedy.

Behind every trag­ic traf­fic acci­dent is an indus­try found­ed on insur­ance pay­outs and legal loop­holes. In Pablo Trapero’s 2010 film, Sosa (Ricar­do Darín) is the lawyer whose work relies on the mis­for­tu­nate. His job requires him to scour A&E depart­ments and police sta­tions look­ing for prospec­tive clients. That is until one fate­ful night when he wit­ness­es a young doc­tor named Luján (Mar­ti­na Gus­man) in the street try­ing to save a patient’s life.

Cesc Gay’s com­e­dy dra­ma sees Julián (Ricar­do Darín) and his loy­al dog Tru­man receive an unex­pect­ed vis­it from old friend Tomás (Javier Cámara). What makes it even more unusu­al is that Tomás has trav­elled all the way from Cana­da. Pro­voked by Julián’s prob­lem­at­ic life expe­ri­ence, this 2015 film sees the pair share ten­der and unex­pect­ed moments.

This Sun­dance win­ner from writer/​director Ana Katz fol­lows new moth­er Liz (Juli­eta Zyler­berg), whose husband’s job as a part of a doc­u­men­tary crew requires him to work away from the fam­i­ly home for months at a time. Seek­ing com­pan­ion­ship, Liz takes her baby to the local park, hop­ing to meet oth­er par­ents. She meets Rosa (Katz) and their blos­som­ing friend­ship ini­tial­ly brings with it the promise of lib­er­a­tion from the tedi­um of every­day life.

Book tick­ets to all of these films and find out what else is play­ing at this year’s fes­ti­val at argen​tine​film​fes​ti​val​.com