The Argentine film Rojo directed by Benjamín Naishtat (History of Fear, El Movimiento), winner of the Silver Shell Awards for Best Director and Best Actor and the Jury Award for Best Cinematography at the last edition of the San Sebastián Film Festival will open on Friday, July 12 at Film at Lincoln Center and the Quad Cinema in New York City, and on Friday, July 19 at the Laemmle Royal in Los Angeles, followed by other cities.
Set in Argentina during the Dirty War, on the eve of the nation’s descent into a military dictatorship in the mid-1970s, Naishtat’s hypnotic and neo-noir drama follows Claudio, a renowned middle-aged lawyer living a seemingly picture-perfect life in a deceptively peaceful provincial city. One night, a stranger starts insulting Claudio in a restaurant for no apparent reason. The patrons support him; the stranger is humiliated and removed. Later that night, the stranger—determined to wreak a terrible vengeance— intercepts Claudio and his wife, Susana. Claudio then starts to move down a path of no return involving death, secrets, and silences—further complicated by the arrival of a Chilean private detective.
With powerful performances from its leading cast of Darío Grandinetti (Talk to Her, Wild Tales), Andrea Frigerio, and Alfredo Castro (Pablo Larraín’s The Club, No, and Tony Manero), Rojo is a timely drama whose historical references hold eerie resonance for our contemporary political moment – suggesting social complicity in the unfolding of far-reaching authoritarian regimes. Rojo, one of the most talked-about films at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival following its world premiere there, formalizes the young Naishtat as an emerging international star.
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