Dirs: Lorenzo Ferro and Lucas Vignale | Cast: Milo Barria, Mariano Barria, Fabian Casas, Rita Pauls, Argentina 75′ 2026 Debut
A Bresson-like observational arthouse film that follows the adventures of Milo (9) when he escapes the confines of his oppressive family home in rural Argentina. Forced by his draconian father to slavishly practice the Malambo, the rhythmic dance of the Gauchos in the Argentinian Pampa, little Milo jumps on the local train one day after a torpid family lunch in the midday heat of his drowsy village. The train journey, across the verdant pastures of the Pampa will take him 120 kilometres away to the bright lights of the capital Buenos Aires, a place that has Milo (played by himself) has always been drawn to.
Captured in vibrant colours and limpid ‘tableaux vivants’ this impressive debut feature is the impressive feature from Lorenzo Ferro and Lucas Vignale, known for his music videos featuring Argentinian rapper Trueno, screens in the Perspectives strand of this year’s Berlinale, playing out as both a glowing ethnographical portrait of this South American country, urban and rural, and a pre-teenager’s coming of age reverie representing by train journey from childhood to the realities of adolescence.
Scenes in the big city occasionally bring to mind a child’s version of Midnight Cowboy (1969) with Milo’s bizarre encounters as he scampers from one adventure to the other, filching food from bars, and meeting odd characters, two of whom – a man and his benign handicapped son – invite him stay the night, and then recommend he tries for a part in a play for children, auditionng in a local theatre. The audition involves trying to stop a baby crying, in 60 seconds. Milo succeeds by trying a ploy his father used on him: a series of repetitive commands. The director is keen to use him but Milo is uninterested preferring to drift through the streets deep in thought, and these moments are captured by artful camerawork.
Reality and dream fuse as the boy seeks a way out of his authoritarian upbringing by breaking into a house and finding himself engaged in a dreamlike interaction with the theatre director that knows no boundaries in the film’s inspired final act where everyday objects and characters he has met during the day’s ramblings take on surreal proportion with Milo wrestling his inner consciousness and racked with guilt. Boarding the train back home he re-awakes from a dream, the journey serving as a rite of passage between carefree childhood and the anxieties of adolescence.
BERLINALE PERSPECTIVES