– New York Times Critic’s Pick –

Mariel (María Villar), a thirty-eight-year-old actress in Buenos Aires who is seven months pregnant, longs to play the role of Isabella in a local theater troupe’s production of Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure.” She has already prepared for an audition, but she is distracted by money problems.

In the hope of receiving financial support from her brother, with whom she has had no contact for a long time, Mariel turns to his lover, Luciana (Agustina Muñoz), who is also an actress, albeit a more successful one. Luciana agrees to convince him, but only if Mariel goes ahead with the audition. However, luck is seldom on Mariel’s side, as time after time, she tries to win this role that persistently eludes her. She also seems to constantly encounter Luciana, a sort of more successful doppelgänger, who leads Mariel to doubt her own ambitions: to act or not to act.

Mariel’s dilemma intertwines her idea of success with her experience of friendship, motherhood and pursuing a career. On a road bordered by frustration and the idea of success that illuminates and bewitches her at the same time, Mariel finds Luciana again and again, a destiny she cannot avoid. As the filmmaker (Matías Piñeiro, Hermia & Helena, The Princess of France) jumps around in time, from the days leading up to a crucial audition to years later, after the women have moved on to other dreams. Isabella is a film about the ongoing battle between doubt and ambition, which unfolds like a jigsaw puzzle of the difficulty of precisely defining our desires, yet never discounts the possibility of a new beginning.

Screened in Spanish with English subtitles.

Matías Piñeiro  |  Argentina/France  |  2020  |  DCP | 80 minutes