Discoveries from Uruguay World Cinema

Their goal is to find the obsessor. To that end, they interview different people, seeking clues to his whereabouts. Eventually, they find him, but things do not go as planned.

A brief incursion to the forbidden place of the collective unconscious.

Forty million people and countless species of flora and fauna depend on the rivers of the Rio de la Plata basin. But there is a development initiative, the Paraguay-Paraná Waterway Project, which aims to change the natural courses of these rivers and build a “Super Highway River” for the transport of grain and raw materials. If this project is implemented, what will the consequences be for society and for the environment?

A musical road movie that takes us on a trip through South America with bands such as Él mató a un policía motorizado, Mundaka, Niños del Cerro and Carmen Sandiego. With a variety of formats that trace a plexus of dissimilar experiences, the film finds in self-management and companionship the common story of independent rock.

Ruben, a street vendor, and Lila, a domestic worker, are a poor Montevidean couple. One day, during the carnival season, they win the lottery, and start believing in the possibility of living with dignity.

At the awards ceremony of the 14th International Cacocortos Festival, a festival where filmmakers offer their own take on the concept of “Caco”. The host, Caco, presents the finalist short films of the Official Cacocompetition while the audience awaits the winning work of this “privilegious” festival.

Rodolfo returned to Uruguay to study money laundering. He met his cousin Sonia at a Sunday lunch and they agreed to get together. However, evil lurks.

An employee that spends his time filing briefs is surprised by a blank sheet of paper which will bring him different opportunities to make changes.

Olivia, an eight-year-old girl at a children's birthday party, comes across a television. Through the news she discovers a reality very different from her own. Two contemporary worlds seem incompatible, although their protagonists may be the same.

Vilma wants to say goodbye to her breast.

A boy sitting on the beach begins to doubt the world around him and falls more and more into an endless derealization.

A couple has an increasingly tense argument at a restaurant after Lucía rejects Martín's marriage proposal.

Documentary about the personal story of Valentín Enseñat and the search for his father, Miguel Ángel Río Casas, who disappeared in 1977 during Uruguay's civil-military dictatorship (1973-1985). Río Casas was in the clandestine detention center known as “Pozo de Quilmes”, run by the Argentine dictatorship (1976-1983).

Hasta Nunca follows MARIO LIGHETTI, an aging hipster DJ who produces an underground radio show in Montevideo, Uruguay. He invites listeners to share their intimate thoughts with him and a live radio audience, in real time. Mario re-negotiates his public and private personas during the course of the film and enters into an extra marital affair with JULIA, a divorcee searching for a new artistic spark.

Is the setting of the sun an event? Or is it a constant dance between the moon and the sun that we can witness from anywhere in the world?

In Uruguay the sea has a different texture than elsewhere.

The wait brings everything to a standstill. Existence becomes diffuse as time goes by. Observe everything or just what we want to see.

Marcha de los Cañeros, by Marcos Banchero, made in 1968 as part of the Cinemateca del Tercer Mundo. During the second half of the 1960s, the Unión de Trabajadores Azucareros de Artigas (UTAA) carried out a series of marches from the north of the country to Montevideo, demanding better living conditions for its workers. These mobilizations took place in a context of economic crisis in the country and growing political and social conflict. Filmmakers Mario Handler, Alberto Miller and Marcos Banchero recorded some of these mobilizations at the time, contributing to the visibility of this sector of society, whose conditions of exploitation had been unknown to the capital's gaze until then.

A record of the works and reflections of this notable Uruguayan sculptor as a starting point to question the fate of art in our society, a question of how this artistic expression remains limited to a restricted area due to the lack of a true cultural policy.

In the midst of the Cold War, and under the US National Security Doctrine, the Uruguayan oligarchies staged the Coup d'état that inaugurated the civic-military Dictatorship. The objective was to put an end to the left-wing political and social movement that was advancing despite the widespread repression in the governments of the traditional parties. Testimonies of survivors from rural areas, and committed to a fairer world, make up this documentary that supports the process of Memory, Truth, Justice and Never Again in Uruguay from the perspective of Human Rights and Transitional Justice.

In 1985, Mayra left her country of Cuba behind to start a new life in Uruguay. 37 years later, after an encounter with her daughter, they start a journey to to recover various memories from her youth, stored in a photo album.

the story of women who reflect on how to break an invisible and imperceptible limit in an audiovisual industry with a patriarchal construction base and origin. Their voices reveal a silent story about what is not talked about in the mass media that feed this conservative patriarchal facet of the sector.

Marina (50) and Solaris (50) discuss about opening their relationship in a cafe. There they meet Tami (30), Marinas lover, who reveals to Solaris that Marina invited her to discuss the matter. Finally, Solaris gets fed up with the relationship and teleports to her planet.

Legend has it that an invisible thread connects those who are destined to meet regardless of the time, place or circumstances. The thread may be lengthened or entangled, but it will never break. Pablo and Melisa seem to be linked to that destiny, but a love triangle with Vanesa will make things difficult.

Perhaps the first experimental color film made in Uruguay, Color was the work of a pioneering woman filmmaker, still a teenager at the time of the film's completion. Millán had a number of vérité shorts under her belt by this point, but none in such gorgeous color.

While their son sleeps, Jazmín and Marcelo pack their bags for their last vacation before separating. Gaspar’s upbringing, possibly within the autistic spectrum, has marked a distance between them. Amidst blame and reproaches, a moment of playfulness emerges, perhaps a bridge to reunite.

This documentary examines the problems of Uruguay's Atlantic coast in the face of a scheme to exploit the area's tourist resources that is not geared to sustainable development.

Gustavo Caymaris is a Taxi Driver in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Gaël, Laeticia and Jean Julien meet in Paris 40 years after the making of Enfants coureurs du temps, a film they shot as children with André S. Labarthe and Sophie Barrouyer. The reunion triggers memories of that shared filming; together they reflect on the traces that the film and their childhoods have left on them. The filmed faces of those three children overlap with their own adult gazes, the Paris of 1983 merges with that of 2023. Time thus becomes the main character in this film.

This is a miniseries in which each chapter features a unique musical ensemble. The material aims to transcend the spectator's position and approach the artists' experience on stage, guided by professional musicians behind the cameras. It is a visual result committed to sound and its multiple meanings. Music is presented as another way of experiencing memory, leaving the viewer to create their own unique and personal reconstruction that completes the experience. Six short musical stories connect to compose one of the many cultural puzzles of South America. Chapters 1, "La Mufa," and 2, "Sara Sabah," will be screened.

Between two different realities, the threads of life cross. An anecdote links Uruguay, Palestine and Israel. A son films his father and his paintings, conflicts overlap. A few reflections guide the relationship between the documentary filmmaker and his character.

A little pigeon looks at the sky and begins to fly towards its most important journey.

A couple of young parents try out an alternative therapy that consists of arguing violently while playing bumper cars in Parque Rodó.

Daniel & Florencia meet at a bus stop. After recreating their first date, they reminisce and wander the streets of Pando catching up with their lives. Through the night the memories and reproaches take over. Between beers, smokes and missing lighters, they will reveal the true intentions behind this not-so-random meeting.

At 88 years old, my grandfather Fernando suggested that we make a film together. His proposal comes when I tell him I'm moving out of his house. So we started filming, me with my camera and he with his. Although we have lived together for more than 20 years, it is through the camera that we see each other like never before. That Breath is an intimate record of our bond, love and loss, in search of understanding what it means to be alive.

A record of a bicycle race held at the Arroyo Seco velodrome, which was located in the Quinta de Iglesias street (modern day Agraciada) by Entre Ríos, Zapicán and San Fructuoso.

Lucía is trapped in an unrequited love and holds on to the memory of María through writing and the thoughts that fill her everyday life. As her world becomes shaped by an idealized version of their connection, the distance between what she feels and what is really happening becomes harder to ignore.

I try to get closer to a man I know only by omission: my grandfather. Through kept letters, a few photographs, and other people’s memories, I explore the gaps and silences that make up the life of a man I never knew.

"Dance for the Apocalypse" is the intersection of fiction, contemporary dance and music, where Olivia (12) gives with her movements a response to what seems to be the end of the world.

In the 1920s, the newsreel was an essential part of the film program: it opened the evening and gave way to short films and feature films. Juan Chabalgoity, a photographer from "el interior", founded the San José Film Company, with which he produced five newsreels that were screened in that city and which are, to this day, the only ones of this genre in the country. Chabalgoity created a valuable repository of social, cultural, political, and historical practices, as well as of the techniques used (colouring, stop motion, animation).

Juanita is the story of a journalist and poet who lived through a century of political struggles in Argentina. During the democratic eras, she had a vibrant journalistic career, published, won awards, fought, studied, and grew. During the dictatorships, she experienced persecution, exile, and isolation. This documentary shows, through Juanita's story, the glory days of Radio Argentina in the 1940s, the birth of Peronism, the internal struggles within this movement, and the effects of dictatorships. It was only in old age that she wrote her best poems, compiled, and published her works.

This film aims to warn, ironically, about the potential “pitfalls” of seduction and deception, without any pejorative intent.

Celeste is 8 years old and lives with her father, Leandro, who is not going through a good time. One morning the doorbell rings. Leandro is still sleeping while she, intrigued by the sound, heads to the door. There, she finds two Mormons, Jake and Matt, waiting patiently.

Ernesto, a forgotten writer, lives isolated in his apartment, where the days repeat themselves like a distant echo. His only contact with the world is Luz, the waitress from the bar on the corner. As he contemplates going away, the line between reality and fiction fades like smoke disappearing into the air.

Pía, a writer recovering from a psychiatric crisis, organizes a reunion with former colleagues. Everything changes when Martín arrives, whom no one remembers and whom she believes to be dead. Paranoia or truth? What seemed like delusion could be hiding something real.

Ana, a shy young woman trapped in the monotony of her job at a mate shop (a South American drink, similar to an infusion), finds solace in dancing and dreams of making it a part of her life. However, she navigates the pressure of facing reality and the difficulty of expressing how she truly feels.