La larga noche de Francisco Sanctis (en)

La larga noche de Francisco Sanctis

Selection: 

Director: 

Francisco Márquez
Andrea Testa

Country: 

  • Argentina

Format: 

Feature film

Type: 

Fiction

Film exhibited in Toulouse: 

Después de Sarmiento (Après Sarmiento), 2014 (Documentary Competition)

Script writer(s): 

Francisco Márquez and Andrea Testa

Synopsis: 

Buenos Aires 1977, the military dictatorship is terrorizing the population. Francisco Sanctis (45) works as an administrative employee. His life is calm, outside of political events. One afternoon, he receives information that forces him out from its passivity. Elena (45), an old friend of the University, calls him urgently. She needs that Francisco signs an authorization to publish a combative poem which he wrote in those years. In her car, Elena tell him that the poem was an excuse and she gives two names and address to him. The army will find these people and will kidnap them. Francisco begins his long night. Shall he try to save the lives of two unknown at the risk of his own life? La larga noche de Francisco Sanctis is structured as an internal journey of a stunned character before a conflict of tragic character. In this, our hero finds himself alone with the final decision.

Visual concept: 

At first, our protagonist is part of a static society, fixed and synthetic shots, motionless bodies, a melancholy atmosphere. During the car ride, the sky will be dark and the world dominated for Francisco will present dangerous. To reinterpret the aesthetics of film noire, we will work with the subjectivity of Francisco, unfocused shots, discordant sounds, fragmentation of space and the construction of an offscreen which starts to fight violently to enter in the framing. Francisco begins to perceive what previously he avoided.