Gerardo Kalmar

In a bustling Mexican household, seven-year-old Sol is swept up in a whirlwind of preparations for the birthday party for her father, Tona, led by her mother, aunts, and other relatives. As the day goes on, building to an event both anticipated and dreaded, Sol begins to understand the gravity of the celebration this year and watches as her family does the same.

1985 – two years after the end of the military dictatorship in Argentina, leading members of the junta are tried in court. Ulises de la Orden creates 18 succinctly edited chapters from 530 hours of footage, bearing witness to state terror.

As every year, the Los Pinos school, a prestigious school of the confessional type, sends its students on retreat to the countryside. Under the watchful eye of teachers and priests, the children are led on the path of their physical and moral development. Through the gaze of several middle and upper class teenagers, the film shows how their upbringing affects the future of society itself.

An American priest working in Mexico is considered a saint by many local parishioners. However, due to a botched exorcism, he carries a secret that’s eating him alive until he gets an opportunity to face his demon one final time.

During Christmas dinner, an Argentinian family finds out that their millionaire uncle has died. His relatives speculate about his generous inheritance, but everything changes when a woman arrives at twelve and introduces herself as the deceased's wife. The head of the family, desperate about the possibility of losing everything, hides the body and forces the others to simulate a kidnapping. The plan is that, this way, the inheritance would be returned in the form of ransom payment. A bag of money appears and the plan seems infallible, but it falls into crisis when everyone wants to take their part.

Marcos is an experienced nurse. He works in the night shift of a provincial private clinic. He is applied and professional but has a secret: in some extreme cases he applies euthanasia. He'll soon meet someone that knows what he's doing.

Zhao Li manages a Sichuan Opera troupe that lives and performs together in a rundown theatre in the outskirts of Chengdu. When she receives an order of demolition, she hides the news, fearing that this could spell their end. Secretly, she wouldn’t mind stopping since their life has become harder over the years. But what else can she do? She also worries that her niece Dan Dan, their star, will leave them for a better future in the city. To keep her troupe “family” together, Zhao Li begins a search for a new theatre for them to both sing and live in. As she struggles with bureaucracy, the characters from the opera world that she uses to escape her troubles begin to seep into her real life…

In the almost two-minute film AI, which Lucrecia Martel created at the Viennale’s invitation, a single shifty eye looks out from a heavily pixelated image; a mouth is vaguely visible and declares: “I am not completely like other people.” Is AI coming to life here, entering a world that’s still foreign to it and that crackles, scratches and echoes? And how does our view of this eerie image change, knowing that the pixels are superimposed on a historical recording from 1961 that documents the anamnesis of a catatonic schizophrenic?

In the almost two-minute film AI, which Lucrecia Martel created at the Viennale’s invitation, a single shifty eye looks out from a heavily pixelated image; a mouth is vaguely visible and declares: “I am not completely like other people.” Is AI coming to life here, entering a world that’s still foreign to it and that crackles, scratches and echoes? And how does our view of this eerie image change, knowing that the pixels are superimposed on a historical recording from 1961 that documents the anamnesis of a catatonic schizophrenic?

In a remote South American colony in the late 18th century, officer Zama of the Spanish crown waits in vain for a transfer to a more prestigious location. He suffers small humiliations and petty politicking as he increasingly succumbs to lust and paranoia.

Mater is a film about the struggle between love and law; about social differences and distances that these generate. And about love, that crosses all, allows all: both good and evil.

It tells the odyssey of Atilio and his granddaughter traveling to Buenos Aires, from Paraguay, his native country. The landscapes that run, the characters they encounter along the way, each with their own way of seeing the world.

When two neighbours clash, their argument becomes less about proposed building alterations and more about the wider battle between class and social status. The hugely impressive building in question is the only example of a Le Corbusier residential home in all of Latin America, adding to the poignancy of their argument.

The filmmaker, writer and teacher-teacher Ricardo Becher likes extreme decisions, both in his life and in his work. Now, at 80 years of age, he begins a new book called “Recta Final”, about his geriatric experience. Lipgot portrays the present of the filmmaker, at the same time that he reviews his history, from his first shorts and the collaboration with Torre Nilsson, passing through the fundamental "Shot of Grace" (1969) - a film that defied its time and was censored -, leading to the new movement that Becher founded with his students: digital neo-expressionism

Three stories of ordinary people intersect on Christmas Eve: a dentist desperate to find his son's toy; a writer who is not happy and decides to look for the woman of his dreams; and a doctor who intends to flirt with a Spanish woman.