Screened as part of NZIFF 2012

Back to Stay 2011

Abrir puertes y ventanas

Directed by Milagros Mumenthaler

Milagros Mumenthaler’s slow-burning portrait follows three young sisters alone in a Buenos Aires house. Their dysfunctional relationship gradually unveils the circumstances of their peculiarly isolated, indolent lives.

Argentina / Switzerland In Spanish with English subtitles
98 minutes 35mm

Director, Screenplay

Producers

Violeta Bava
,
David Epiney
,
Rosa Martínez Rivero
,
Eugenia Mumenthaler

Photography

Martín Frias

Editor

Gion-Reto Killias

Production designer

Sebastián Orgambide


Costume designer

Françoise Nicolet

With

María Canale (Marina)
,
Martina Juncadella (Sofia)
,
Ailín Salas (Violeta)
,
Julián Tello (Francisco)

Festivals

Locarno, Toronto, San Sebastian, Vancouver, London 2011
,
Rotterdam 2012

Awards

Best Film & Best Director, Locarno Film Festival 2011

Elsewhere

“Milagros Mumenthaler’s debut feature scooped both the Golden Leopard and the Critics Award at this year’s Locarno Film Festival and heralds the director as yet another promising talent from Argentina. Throughout this spare, melancholic film, she guards her narrative secrets – only gradually does it emerge [who] the three lost and bickering souls living under one roof are… The action never leaves the grand but neglected Buenos Aires family home. The camera beautifully stalks its rooms and contents and the piles of possessions – constant reminders of the past – that surround the [three young] sisters… With her preference for low light and a soft focus, a languid end-of-summer aimlessness hangs over the film. Meanwhile she patiently observes every snide comment and questioning stare shared between the three sisters, revealing clashing personalities and exploring in detail the dynamic between them.” — Isabel Stevens, Sight & Sound