Ostende

When a young woman (Laura Paredes) wins a radio contest, her prize is four days in a hotel in Ostende, a seaside town by the Atlantic coast in the province of Buenos Aires. Only it’s not high season, so the beach proves blustery, the hotel is pretty much empty and she doesn’t have much to do while she waits for her boyfriend to join her. So she listens to the stories of a friendly local waiter and watches the comings and goings of an older man and the two women who appear to be with him.

From El Pampero Cine, the company responsible for Mariano Llinás’ Extraordinary Stories and Alejo Moguillansky’s Castro (LFF 2009) comes a playful study of voyeurism and the power of storytelling inflected through a feminist sensibility. Laura Paredes gives an assured performance as the outsider whose imagination goes into overdrive when faced with the reality of the sleepy spa resort. Laura Citarella may have described Ostende as a very small feature, but the mischievous nods to Hitchcock and Rohmer and the film’s marked focus on ways of seeing actually render this a visually arresting and highly individual debut.