International première
A letter is sailing to the shores of the river Plate. On dry land, messages turn to tragedy. A small fishing village whose life is upended by a murder. The documentary and detective genres merge to create this story of love and intrigue.
A love letter, the sea, fishing, sailors in the fog. The question, the landscape, the darkness and the close up. The portrait of a beach close to the Argentine city of La Plata, La Balandra, explores its hidden corners and regular characters by using the plot of a love story, poetic balm and a pinch of suspense.
Filmmaker Matías Lima explores various categories or genres of expressive potential without getting trapped by their codes. He ventures from one to another entirely unscathed. This stroll along La Balandra beach, which escapes the norm, transforms each shot into something new and surprising —what came before barely foreshadows what is to come next— and breaks away from sequential logic and the expectations of the observer.
La Balandra is therefore and above all an exercise in concretion in the succession of images, in the minimal and essential act of creating one shot after another. With his concise, incisive cuts and the pace at which they are made, the possibilities multiply. There are faces, voices and mysteries from which more could be expected but are enough when they leave us.
Anna Brufau