alr

Mar

Directed by Dominga Sotomayor.
With Lisandro Rodríguez, Vanina Montes, Andrea Strenitz .
Argentina/Chile, 2014, DCP, color, 58 min.
Spanish with English subtitles.
DCP source: CINESTACIóN

For her second feature, Sotomayor reached for a looser, improvisational structure and style, collaborating with her small cast and crew on an open script that was collectively written day by day on location and that incorporated chance events as they unfolded around them. As in Thursday Till Sunday, a road trip launches Mar, this time with a young and awkwardly attached couple traveling to a family vacation house in an Argentine resort town. The arrival of the man’s rowdy mother further destabilizes the couple and raises the stakes of their vacation and big decisions they keep avoiding. Maintaining a markedly distanced camera and perspective, Sotomayor’s restrained film carefully observes the dynamic at work in the relationships between mother and son and between the couple, capturing both their barely expressed affection and the flashes of unvarnished raw emotion that punctuate their tense time together.

PRECEDED BY

  • Los Barcos

    Directed by Dominga Sotomayor.
    With Francisca Castillo, João Canijo, Carloto Cotta.
    Portugal/Chile, 2016, DCP, color, 20 min.
    Spanish with English subtitles.
    DCP source: Portugal Film

A short episode for the collective film Here in Lisboa, Los Barcos stars veteran Chilean film and television star, and mother of Sotomayor, Francisca Castillo as an actress invited to present a film at an unnamed Lisbon festival. Freed from obligations after her screening, Castillo drifts across the Tagus River in search of an old friend. Sotomayor’s gentle film is an affectionate collaboration with her mother sparked by hints of deadpan humor that recall the work of Aki Kaurismäki.

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