BFI London Film Festival: Dog Lady

BFI London Film Festival: 238 films. From 71 countries. 16 cinemas. 12 days. One Festival.

A middle-aged woman leads an isolated existence on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, in a dilapidated shack that she has constructed from the waste that city dwellers have discarded. No indication is given as to how she got there or what her past life might have been like. Instead, across the four seasons, the camera follows her as she goes about her daily routines with her beloved dogs, forging a meaningful, if solitary, existence on the margins of urban life. Laura Citarella (Ostende, LFF2011), working with renowned actress Verónica Llinás, crafts a compelling tale of resourcefulness and enterprise, realised with flair and wit. Dog Lady provides a rounded and wonderfully idiosyncratic portrait of an individual who is determined to live life on her own terms surrounded by canine companions who function as a distinctive contemporary chorus on the action.

(Notes by Maria Delgado)

Dog Lady, dir. Laura Citarella, Argentina 2015, 98 mins.