The 2025 Mar del Plata Film Festival will mark the event’s 40th anniversary by honoring three local cinema figures and screening a slew of award-winning films from festivals like Cannes and Berlin, organizers announced on Monday.

The festival, set to run between November 6 and 16, will grant a Silver Astor for Lifetime Achievement to director Juan José Jusid and actors Marilina Ross and Miguel Angel Solá. Former recipients include Ricardo Darín (Argentina, 1985), Norma Aleandro and Juan Antonio Bayona (Society of the Snow).

A former actor, puppeteer and photographer, Jusid’s directorial career began in 1968 with Tute Cabrero, and included 16 feature-length films and several TV series. A restored version of his third film Los gauchos judíos, released 50 years ago, will have a special screening.  Based on Alberto Gerchunoff’s book about the first Jewish settlers in 19th-century Argentina, the film endured arson attacks during filming, as well as partial state censorship and bomb threats by antisemitic right-wing groups at the time of its theatrical release. 

Actress and songwriter Marilina Ross became a hugely popular TV star in the 1960s and 1970s, and made the jump to film in 1962 with Guillermo Fernández Jurado’s El televisor. She played secondary roles in films by classic Argentine directors like Lucas Demare and Leopoldo Torre Nilsson, as well as in Sergio Renán’s 1974 La tregua, the first Argentine film to be nominated for an Oscar. Ross put her acting career on the back burner when she decided to dedicate herself to music in the 1980s, but her film and television career left an indelible mark on Argentine culture. 

The festival will screen 4K digitized versions of La Raulito and La Raulito en libertad, both directed by Lautaro Murúa. Based on the true story of María Esther Duffau, a young woman and famous Boca Juniors supporter who turned to petty crime and disguised herself as a man to survive on the streets. Raulito would become a milestone character in Ross’s career. A lifelong Peronist, Ross was banned by the military dictatorship in 1976 and went into exile in Spain until the 1980s.

Actor Miguel Ángel Solá’s 55-year career as a stage, TV and film actor has featured outstanding roles, including portrayals of real-life doctor and bacteriologist Salvador Mazza (Casas de fuego) and hitman Ramón Valdéz Cora, the man who shot and killed Senator-elect Enzo Bordabehere in the middle of a Senate session in 1935. Solá also starred in the Oscar nominated musical Tango, directed by Carlos Saura. The festival will offer a five-film program focused on the actor’s career, which includes Juan José Jusid’s Asesinato en el Senado de la Nación, Pino Solana’s Tangos, el exilio de Gardel, and Juan Bautista Stagnaro’s Casas de fuego.

From Cannes and Berlin to Mar del Plata

While the official festival program presentation is on October 21, several award-winning films from top-tier festivals have already been confirmed. 

Mar del Plata will screen winners from the Cannes film festival’s official competition, as well as its sidebar programs. These include Oliver Laxe’s Sirat, which received the Jury’s Grand Prize. Straight from the Un Certain Regard section, Mar del Plata will feature the top winner — Diego Céspedes’ La misteriosa mirada del flamenco, from Chile — as well as the Jury Prize winner, Simón Mesa Soto’s Un poeta, from Colombia. 

Also in the program are the winner of Directors’ Fortnight, Hasan Hadi’s The President’s Cake, from Iraq, and the Thai film A Useful Ghost, by Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, which topped the Critics’ Week.

The winner of this year’s Golden Bear at the Berlin film festival, Dag Johan Haugerud’s Dreams, will also play as part of a retrospective of the Norwegian filmmaker that will also feature his 2024 films Sex and Love. From Berlin’s Panorama section, Mar del Plata will screen the top winner Sorda, Eva Libertad’s first feature-length film, which also swept the Malaga film festival, winning Best Actor, Best Actress and the Audience Award. 

Cover photo: image from Lautaro Murúa’s La Raulito