Events from September 4, 2025 – September 6, 2025 – VLAFF

Opening Night: A Loose End

Thamis — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 02:00:00 +0000

Dir. Daniel Hendler
Uruguay, Argentina
2025

Premiering at the Venice Film Festival last year, A LOOSE END is the 3rd film as a director by the renowned Uruguayan actor Daniel Hendler.

Santiago, an Argentinian police constable, crosses the border to Uruguay on the run from the other police officers on his trail. Putting his uniform to good use, he inspects regional food stalls, testing milk products and cold cuts to survive, while trying to go unnoticed among the locals. With neither money nor a place to stay, but with kindness and wit, he starts to carve out a new life for himself, receiving help from the local characters who cross his path, and even meeting the person he believes could be the love of his life.

”There’s universal pleasure to be had in the film’s inventive vision of a fugitive” Lee Marshal, Screen Daily

Followed by the OPENING NIGHT PARTY!!

Following the Voices of Our Ancestors to the Future

Thamis — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 21:00:00 +0000

Our stories do not end when the apocalypsis and destruction arrives. That is just one part of our history, there is a future when the Earth is alive and healthy again, when we can live on it, when we come back following the voice of our ancestors. This does not happen magically, it happens because of the effort and work of generations, when all the stories matter.

Indigenous futurisms is possible because it is made up of stories of peoples who are finding love, having to leave their family, coming back to their Indigenous language, fighting against ceremonial extractivism, and connecting historical resistance to the present through archival material.

Akira Iahtail & Masan Galindo

Explore this short program here

The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo

Thamis — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 23:00:00 +0000

1982. Eleven-year-old Lidia lives with her beloved queer family in a desert mining town in northern Chile. As an unknown and deadly disease begins to spread, legend has it that it is transmitted between two men, through a simple glance, when they fall in love. While people are accusing her family, Lidia must find out whether this myth is real or not.

The Devil Smokes

Thamis — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 01:15:00 +0000

Mexico City, mid-90s. After the sudden disappearance of their parents, five siblings are left in the care of their grandmother. As they struggle to survive, the line between reality and something darker begins to blur. The grandmother, tormented by strange visions and rising fears, grows more distant, while the children’s grip on their own perceptions starts to unravel.

It Would Be Night In Caracas

Thamis — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 03:30:00 +0000

Trapped in a city on the verge of collapse, 38-year-old Adelaida buries her mother and is left completely alone. In the streets of Caracas, protests are brutally crushed. When she returns home, she discovers her apartment has been overtaken by women aligned with the regime. With no way out, she hides in the flat next door — only to discover the corpse of her neighbour. Forced to share her confinement with a young man she cannot trust, Adelaida descends into a claustrophobic spiral of paranoia, fear, and death — until she realises that to survive, she must give up her identity and become someone else: “the daughter of the Spanish woman”.

TICKETS:

The Dance of the Kokorrdit

Thamis — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 21:00:00 +0000

Areo Peña is the chief of the Wounaan tribe, a peaceful community based in the Darien rainforest, on the border between Panama and Colombia.
The tribe faces a pressing crisis: the jungle is under threat from illegal loggers, drug traffickers, cattle ranchers, miners and a government that refuses to recognise the Wounaan’s territorial rights.
When Areo discovers that, due to the indiscriminate felling of trees, the sacred kokorrdit bird is no longer to be seen in the area, he decides to set out on a journey to find it, in the hope of restoring the spiritual balance of the community. But Areo will not be travelling alone: he will be accompanied by Ayned, a rebellious teenager who lives in the city, cares only about her mobile phone and is estranged from the traditions of her people. The journey will not be easy: they will have to cross, on foot and by river, one of the most dangerous areas in the world and face countless natural and, above all, human threats.
Amidst illegal migrants and demobilised guerrillas, amidst poisonous snakes and black-market traders, Areo and Ayned will set out in search of the sacred bird and must learn to accept their differences and live together: after all, perhaps they are not as different as they think.

Our Illusions Rewrite the Tracks

Thamis — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 22:45:00 +0000

The curtains rise, revealing the magic of cinema: textures, stories, connections we feel from our seats. In this selection, film channels our devotions, frustrations, losses, and dreams. Honouring their identity and sense of belonging, these Latinx creators nurture their illusions and ingeniously express and overcome personal and social barriers. Throughout this program, the setting transforms into a beach, a karaoke bar, a mountain, a river, or even a broken-down van, bringing us closer to characters who shine with their own light, amplifying the familiarity of our differences and the wonderful possibility of rewriting our journey through the screen.

Explore this short program here

Homo Argentum

Thamis — Sun, 13 Sep 2026 01:15:00 +0000

A riotous and sharply perceptive anthology comedy from the acclaimed Argentine duo Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat, Homo Sapiens? (original title Homo Argentum) unfolds across sixteen distinct episodes, each led by Guillermo Francella in a remarkable display of comic range and character work.Rooted in the spirit of classic Italian satire, the film deploys humour and irony to examine the contradictions, absurdities, and contradictions of contemporary life and identity in urban Argentina. Celebrated in Argentina as both a box-office phenomenon and a provocative cultural artefact, the film cements Cohn and Duprat’s reputation for blending entertainment with incisive social insight, while confirming Francella’s standing as one of Latin America’s most versatile performers.

Belén

Thamis — Sun, 13 Sep 2026 03:30:00 +0000

Tucumán, Argentina, 2014; a young woman is admitted to a hospital with severe abdominal pain, unaware she is pregnant. She wakes up handcuffed to a gurney and surrounded by police. She is accused of having self-induced an abortion and, after two years in detention, is sentenced to eight years in prison for aggravated homicide. A female lawyer from Tucumán will fight for her freedom with the support of thousands of women and organizations, who unite to change the course of history.

The Blue Trail

Thamis — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 03:15:00 +0000

Tereza, 77, has lived her whole life in a small industrialised town in the Amazon, until one day she receives an official government order to relocate to a senior housing colony. The colony is an isolated area where the elderly are brought to “enjoy” their final years, freeing the younger generation to focus fully on productivity and growth. Tereza refuses to accept this imposed fate. Instead, she embarks on a transformative journey through the rivers and tributaries of the Amazon to fulfil one last wish before her freedom is taken away – a decision that will change her destiny forever.