Esteros (2016) is an Argentinian film directed by Papu Curotto. It stars Ignacio Rogers as Matías, who formerly lived in Argentina, but left when his family moved to Brazil. Ten years later, he returns for a visit to Argentina with his Brazilian girlfriend. He meets his boyhood friend Jerónimo (Esteban Masturini), and there's obviously still a bond between them.
Matías and his girlfriend aren't happy. She's beautiful, sophisticated, buoyant, and fun-loving. He's dour and hates noise and crowds. He and Jerónimo are much better matched in temperament.
However, Matías is well educated and successful as a biologist. (Director Curotto suggests that Matías is doing research on GMO plants.) Jerónimo studied filmmaking, but he's drifting along making FX models, and doing makeup for party goers.
The men return to Jerónimo's home, near an estuary. The city is surrounding the region, but Jerónimo's parents want to preserve the area and keep it in its natural state.
In any case, the men have returned to the spot where they had been many times before, except that now they are ten years older.
This is an very good movie. The acting is well done, the plot makes sense, and the estuary truly is beautiful.
We saw this film at the excellent Little Theatre, as part of ImageOut, the wonderful Rochester LGBT film festival. It will work better on the large screen, because of the beautiful scenery of the estuary. However, it will work well enough on a small screen as well.
This is one of 22 movies at ImageOut that had their New York State or East Coast premiere at the Image Out festival. My compliments to the festival Programming Committee.
