Pandemia
2019 · 11m · Argentina
Directed by Matías Ballistreri
Genres: drama, sci-fi, thriller
Tones: contemplative, dark, tense
Almost a year after a pandemic, Fernando, a young survivor in Patagonia, keeps a routine that keeps him relatively sane in his solitude — until Abril, a girl who claims not to be infected, arrives looking for help and he takes the risk of sheltering her.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Post-pandemic isolation thriller is catnip for every festival programmer right now, which is exactly why Ballistreri's restraint feels almost defiant—he refuses the spectacle, lets the threat stay invisible, and somehow that makes it worse.
A precise chamber piece that inherits the DNA of '70s paranoia cinema while working in the register of contemporary dread; the editing especially—how it withholds and reveals Fernando's internal fracture—recalls a more rigorous tradition than its premise might suggest.
The entire film pivots on a single choice: shooting Fernando's face in near-total stillness while Abril moves through the frame, letting her restless energy become the only metric of danger we trust, and it's a decision that transforms a familiar survival scenario into something genuinely unsettling on a micro-budget.