Pompeya

An experienced scriptwriter, his apprentice, and a film director get together and start to imagine a gangster film that would take place in the margins of today’s Buenos Aires. As the meetings go by, it becomes clear that the first one’s intellectual sophistication –he would prefer more Borges and Greek tragedy instead of the blood, sweat, and bullets the other two get excited about– will not end up in the script. In parallel, the imagined film shows up: a gore-like violent crime story featuring characters with exotic names (like Dylan, the underworld hero who finds himself in the middle of a mafia war between Russians and Koreans) that takes place in a mythical and cosmopolitan version of the Pompeya neighborhood. Now a solo artist, Garateguy takes some of the premises of Upa! to the extreme and smartly mixes an acid portray of local cinema’s backstage with a straight up gangster film, and gets a result that’s stranger than fiction. (Oh, and get your ears ready to listen some incredible orchestral versions of songs from a legendary local band.) –Mar del Plata International Film Festival