Daniel Valenzuela

Four independent short stories but they have in common that they happen in Buenos Aires during legislative elections. A candidate for deputy, Carlos Celestini floods the city with his image and can be seen in each of the stories.

A remote village 100 kilometers from the city of Buenos Aires. Stephen, Matías, Alejo, Damián and Guido were born 13 years ago in this small town. They have always been friends and together they share the monotonous summer afternoons sitting on the stoop of a women's hairdresser. Anxious, restless, impatient for a change, they go through the most confusing period of experiment -- the transition from childhood to adolescence.

Los Últimos is the remake of the frustrated Pozo de Zorro, by Miguel Mirra himself. A group of soldiers is isolated after a bloody battle, but they refuse to surrender. The Malvinas war is approached by Miguel Mirra from a different perspective than that known until now. The Last Ones is a war drama where there is no room for guilt and commiseration.

Set in Argentina in 1965, the story follows the tumultuous relationship between two men who became lovers and ultimately ruthless bank robbers in a notoriously famous footnote in the annals of crime history. After a large-scale hold-up that turns bloody, the two men must flee. It is not long before the police are surrounding the building they are in and they must confront their demons to survive.

In the revolted 70's in Argentina, teenage Graciela is an artist and a poet. She and Julio, a charismatic student leader, are brought together by their ideals for social justice. Her poems reach young musician Flecha, who dreams of singing them for a roaring crowd. As the times grow harder and more dangerous, friends are persecuted, Graciela and Julio protect each other, but the dictatorship kidnaps them. Graciela's mother desperate search for her daughter brings her together with the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who's relentless clamor for their missing children is only met with more terror and death from the bloody dictatorship. 35 years later, that mother publishes a book of Graciela's poems, and brings it to Flecha, now an accomplished musician. He turns them into songs that let her words live and fly.

Nina is a 16-year-old girl who lives in a rural neighborhood of Oberá (Misiones, Argentina). She works on the farm and in the village to support her family, which prevents her from attending school. One day, she is enticed to travel to the capital by a job offer as a nanny, offering a good salary and the opportunity to study. She shares this dream with Lourdes, her Paraguayan cousin from a marginalized neighborhood in the city of Encarnación, who receives a similar offer.

Pistolero is a fiction that in a certain way is an essay on violence. The story follows the criminal raid of Isidoro Mendoza and his brother Claudio in the rural Argentina during Ongania’s dictatorship, and how the violence of his criminal deeds begins to leave a mark in them. A teacher from Buenos Aires arrives to Isidoro’s life, and love is the possibility to open himself to a new life, but even as he tries, he can not escape the entropy generated by his own drives and actions.

In an inhospitable rural area in North-East Argentina, machismo, destitution and the repression meted out under the military dictatorship sees the birth of the latest daughter born to Antonio, alcoholic woodcutter who anxiously wanted his first son. After the three daughters are farmed out to families in better financial position, he christens the latest one with the name of José, nicknamed Bumbún, and forces her to take on the identity of a boy. Mercedes, hurt by having lost her other daughters, protects the girl and keeps up the lie, constantly threatened by Antonio. Having been forced to act as a boy since childbirth, Bumbún will struggle between whether to accept her fate or to fight to change it.

Amid the sweltering summer heat in northern Argentina, two middle-class families retreat to a crumbling country estate and a modest townhouse, where strained relationships, simmering tensions, and the presence of children and servants quietly expose the fractures of family life. Between idle days, gossip, and unspoken desires, the boundaries of class, tradition, and faith are reflected in their everyday interactions.

Florencio Varela, Buenos Aires Argentina 2018. After her mother’s death, Naty (a middle-aged transvestite) start taking control of every inch of the house, accompanied by her loyal friend Sixty. Her luck seems to have changed, until one day a secret from the past is revealed. A thriller in the suburbs, filled with the political insubordination and the dark comedy that is so characteristic of Naty Menstrual.

Overflow Psychiatric hospital. Lighting in a stormy night's sky. With almost 12 years without seeing each other, Marcos Ferro (36) and Ivan Manusovich (37) meet the morning after having heard the news about Martin Tayal's death, Who was once a member of Journalism and writing workshop in the hospital. They were both part of the workshop's creation and of a very recognized and conflict magazine which one generated therapeutic, institutional and social effects that proved to be too much for it. The words heard through the phone the day before make them need to find out what happened to Martin and his body. While discussing about this very same subject a word makes them remember about the beginnings of the workshop.

The film tells two stories apparently very distant are slowly approaching each other. On the one hand is Babarimisa, a young man from Benin who suffers from a relentless disease for which seems to have no remedy. Desperate to save his mother, Morenike, a Yoruba priestess goes to invoke the power of the Orishas gods. Meanwhile in Argentina, Shantas is a young offender living in a marginal area tainted by the practices of Umbanda, a cult derived from African religions. None of us can even imagine the surprises that come in the destination.

A young actress rehearsing for a play about human trafficking begins to relive terrifying scenes that may be dreams -- or an alternate reality.

Gualtieri is an apathetic ex-cop, fighting himself, almost nothing excites him. That is why he accepts an easy job in the jungle of the triple border. Investigating how and why a person was killed becomes the key to revealing other truths that should be buried under the wet red soil of the place.

A Spanish writer finds an old coffer with photographs of an Argentine man who fought and died in the Spanish Civil War, and of a woman. Her quest for answers brings Vera to the Argentine Patagonia.

1977, Argentina. Gina (37) is obsessively trying to conceive a child with her husband Carlos (58), with whom she previously lost a baby before birth. Carlos is a powerful businessman involved in shady deals with the military during the dictatorship. A former equestrian champion, Gina finds solace in horseback riding to escape the anguish of not becoming a mother. One afternoon, she gives in to the attraction she feels for the stable boy at her riding club. They become lovers, but she soon realizes that love alone cannot heal her wounds. Later, she finds out the army has kidnapped her best friend. In search of help, she turns to a captain from her husband's inner circle – unaware that she's walking into a trap.

Mariana doesn’t like her name and starts calling herself Gloria. Her parents split up before she was one year old and today, like many separated couples, they are brought back together under the same roof only because they don’t have a decent job. Cristina, her mother, rents a part of the house to her ex-husband for a bit of extra money. “Francia” talks about those people who will never travel far from their home, where they take refuge, for good or bad, from all disgusting things in the outside world. Meanwhile, Mariana puts on her headphones when she hears her parents fighting. Those fights which now serve as a relief to the helpless.

In the backroom of a supermarket, Matias spends the night with his new coworkers: Lucas and Raúl, a night guard at the wholesale section. What begins as a casual hangout gradually takes a strange turn due to Raúl’s constant mood swings, making the dynamic increasingly tense and uncomfortable.

Mariano is a psychologist who must fulfill community service after losing a lawsuit by a traffic accident. He is forced to provide therapeutic support to Alfredo, a policeman depressed over his wife cheating on him. Mariano is then accidentally involved in a double homicide investigation being conducted by Alfredo.

The priest Mario Pantaleo discovers he has some power to diagnose and cure diseases through the laying on of hands. But the police and the church hierarchy will against him.

Ramón Antúnez, a sawmill laborer from the province of Misiones, is fired from his job. Overwhelmed by economic problems, he is seduced by his compadre Antonio, an experienced fisherman, to participate in a transfer of marijuana from Paraguay, across the river, to Leiva, a renowned drug trafficker in the area.

The life and death of the tropical singer Gilda.

An actor's journey playing an assassin on the set of a film that takes place in a Buenos Aires' butcher shop. Short novella from the anthology "Historias breves 7". The Almanac is part of the Argentine National Film Board's (INCAA) Short Film Project Competition and Filmmakers Support Program. This novella was shown as part of an almanac and had separate festival distribution and screenings.

Argentine dictatorship, 1978. About to have a child, Ernesto moves in with his girlfriend Paloma. What he doesn't know is that the military is looking for them. When they are arrested, they are taken to a clandestine prison. Once there, Paloma dies in childbirth, and Ernesto is tortured to death. In 2010, Alejandro, Ernesto's priest brother, thinks he recognizes the couple's daughter, Natalia. After contacting his niece, she must decide whether to accept his true identity or the one imposed on her for 30 years.