With Érica Rivas, Luis Ziembrowski, Daniel Hendler, Ornella D´Elía, Marilú Marini, Valeria Lois, Rafael Federman
ACADEMY AWARD® ARGENTINA’S SUBMISSION FOR BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Following the path of Lucrecia Martel’s La Cienega, Paula Hernández places her film in that family reunion subgenre, focusing on the story between mother and daughter. Luisa, her husband Emilio, and their 14-year-old daughter Ana, are spending their New Year holiday visiting Emilio’s mother Meme at her country house, joined by Emilio’s brother and his family. Over the course of what was hoped to be a peaceful, summertime family vacation, multiple tensions – ranging from career worries to troubled adolescence, a possible selling of the house to myriad family problems – will gradually simmer into an explosion. Luisa and Ana in particular will face an awakening in the midst of a silent family crisis.
Featuring a skilled and brilliant Argentinian cast, including Erika Rivas (Wild Tales) and Luis Ziembrowski (One Love), who bring the requisite nuance and humanity to Hernandez’ rich script, The Sleepwalkers is an indelible portrait of a family in crisis, where desire and expectation clash when familial pressures push women to their limits. The film builds to a violent climax, but in its aftermath, we’re given the relief of knowing that, when chaos reigns, the parent-child connection at the center of this story holds. (Miami Film Festival)