How much loneliness can one man endure? Un año sin amor follows a year in the life of one Pablo Perez, a handsome intellectual struggling to get his poetry published while toiling as a French tutor in Buenos Aires during the 1990s. When he learns he has contracted HIV, he begins a journal to track his journey of grappling with the disease. Living in a simple, tiny apartment, looking after his mentally disabled aunt, the intensely introverted Pablo seeks out connection by composing an artistically masterful personal ad in a local gay magazine. Naturally, he receives little response, and turns to cruising porn theaters and S&M leather dungeons. Through the latter, he meets the swarthy macho leather dominator Martin, whom inflames every level of Pablo’s senses – and who is achingly unattainable. Un año sin amor reflects Pablo’s obsession with the beauty of language – both the written word and the syntax of cinema. First-time feature director Anahi Berneri employs a grainy cinematography that poetically imparts a stark, austere, erotic beauty to the harsh and emotionally empty world that her characters inhabit. Berneri is a master with the close-up, and by varying them with melancholic long shots she precisely captures a mood of yearning and sorrow not felt since Ennis del Mar was left alone in his trailer eternally contemplating a postcard and a bloody shirt. In Spanish with English subtitles.
Anahí Berneri was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1975. She is a graduate of of the Institute National de L’audiovisual in Paris. In 1997, she wrote and directed the award-winning documentary short film Modelo Para Amar. She is a lecturer at the University of Buenos Aires’ School of Sound and Image Design. Un año sin amor is her first feature film.
Gateway
9:15pm Screening
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