My thanks to Danny Kasman and MUBI for publishing my conversation with Argentine filmmaker Santiago Mitre on the occasion of his directorial debut El Estudiante (The Student, 2011), which premiered at BAFICI and travelled on to become an official selection at the Locarno, Toronto and New York film festivals.Earlier at MUBI, Dan Sallitt dispatched from TIFF: "First-time Argentinian director Santiago Mitre, who has written several films for Pablo Trapero, has scored one of the hits of the fall festival circuit with The Student, which premiered at Locarno and travels from Toronto to the New York Film Festival. The dense script is set in the world of college politics, which Mitre posits as an all-consuming, warlike activity, requiring that its most dedicated practitioners give up going to classes altogether. I was reminded of Soderbergh, both in the realistic dynamism of the verbal pyrotechnics and in the somewhat conventional deep dramatic structure. Much of the large cast hovers on the edge of TV-like solemnity, but newcomer Esteban Lamothe carries off the lead role well, and there's a great supporting performance from Romina Paula as a girlfriend who is decidedly not restricted to the domestic sphere."
Subsequently, David Hudson rounded up the reviews from NYFF.
Photo courtesy of Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images North America.
