Paulina

Paulina, gives up a brilliant lawyer’s carrier, in order to dedicate herself to teaching in a depressed region in Argentina. In a rough environment, she sticks to her teaching mission and to her political engagement, accepting to sacrifice her boyfriend and the trust of her father, a powerful local judge. Upon her arrival, she is violently aggressed by a gang of young people, some of them being her own students. Despite the trauma and the inability to understand, Paulina will strive to stand for her convictions. Paulina is a social thriller that explores the characters connected to an act of violence – the victims and the perpetrators – and examines how that violence triggers different ideas of justice.

“One of the challenges Paulina presents us with is how to respect decisions with which we don’t agree. It’s easy to respect decisions we would also make, but almost impossible to try to understand what we believe to be wrong. Why does Paulina decide what she decides? What is she looking for? What does she want to prove? We asked ourselves these things often at each stage of the film, and we’re still wondering now, as I hope the viewer will. It’s difficult to find an answer, to interpret her decision… as difficult as it is to interpret the violence that caused it, in a divided world where institutions can barely serve as containment, a world which finds it impossible to supply answers, and where violence erupts either with or without an obvious cause.”

Santiago Mitre

Argentina Brazil France
103'
2015

Director
Santiago Mitre

Script
Mariano Llinás
Santiago Mitre

Cinematography
Gustavo Biazzi

Editing
Delfina Castagnino
Joana Collier
Leandro Aste

Production
Campbell Llambi Agustina
Axel Kuschevatzky
Twin Domehri
Fernando Brom
Gaël Nouaille
Ignacio Avenue
Laurent Baudens
Lita Stantic
Santiago Mitre
Walter Salles

Cast
Cristian Salguero
Dolores Fonzi
Esteban Lamothe
Oscar Martinez

Music
Nicholas Varchausky

Awards
Cannes Film Festival Critics Week Grand Prize - Fipresci Prize

Festivals
1. World Cinema
21st Festival on Wheels