FELICIDADES is Argentina's Y2K Oscar submission for Best Foreign Film. Director Lucho Bender, who also participated in the screenwriting, was tired of Christmas films in which everything works out, and FELICIDADES is his antidote. A Mitzvah entertainer, a novelist, his girlfriend, a doctor, a wheelchair bound man, a father out looking for a last-minute present - all are tied together without necessarily knowing it, both by circumstances that bring their lives to intersection, but more so by longing. The pace is fast, the characters engaging, and in the end, there remains the promise of better days to come.