07/05/2024 - The Directors’ Fortnight-selected picture, sold by MPM Premium, is a drama set in the criminal underworld of bookmakers and blends found footage with fiction

Hernán Rosselli’s third feature, a crime drama titled Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed [+see also:
film review
film profile], will world-premiere in the Directors’ Fortnight of this year’s Cannes Film Festival (14 to 25 May).

Rosselli, currently serving as a Professor of Documentary Film at the FUC - Universidad del Cine, specialised as an editor at Buenos Aires-based film school ENERC. Later, he founded and edited Las Naves, a magazine dedicated to auteur cinema. His debut feature, a drama titled Mauro, bowed in Rotterdam’s Bright Future competition (where it scooped the FIPRESCI Prize) and snagged the Special Jury Prize at BAFICI in 2014. In 2018, he released his sophomore feature, a documentary titled Casa del Teatro, also screened at BAFICI.

Rosselli’s latest endeavour, penned by the director himself, is set in the outskirts of Buenos Aires, where the Felpetos have managed a clandestine lottery business for decades. While Maribel leads a crew of clerks who log the bets from her living room, Alejandra, her mother, works from the administrative office. Lately, some lotto bankers have been raided and the atmosphere in the neighbourhood has become strange. There has been talk about police dismissals and big-money movements. While nobody can tell the truth from the rumours or the news on TV, a secret behind the Felpeto family comes to light.

The main cast is made up of Maribel Felpeto, Alejandra Cánepa, Juliana Simões Risso, Leandro Menendez, Javier Abril Rotger, Marcelo Barbosa and Hugo Felpeto. The technical crew includes DoP Joaquín Neira and editors Federico Rotstein and Jimena García Molt, who worked alongside the director himself.

“Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed has a true singularity in Argentinian cinema by blending found footage with fiction, while the dispositive in use in the film recalls the latest Argentinian successes – to name a few, The Delinquents [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Rodrigo Moreno
film profile], Trenque Lauquen [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Laura Citarella
film profile] and La Flor. Set in the criminal underworld of bookmakers, there is a mystery to be solved for which the director offers hints but also misleading trails. Just like a puzzle to assemble, the film’s narrative and ending will certainly feel rewarding to the audience,” says Quentin Worthington, head of sales at MPM Premium, speaking to Cineuropa.

Zooming in on his firm’s slate and his planned activities at the upcoming Marché du Film (14 to 22 May), he reveals: “MPM Premium has built over the years a line up made of debut and second films that feel contemporary and appealing to audiences. At the Marché, we will keep up with the sales of the Spanish queer comedy On the Go [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: María Gisèle Royo, Julia de…
film profile], the horror surprise hit The Coffee Table and the ACID French dramedy Fotogenico. Meanwhile, we will pitch upcoming projects in post-production – namely, the existentialist French romcom Vanishing Goats by Marie Rémond, the French-Colombian magical drama Black Snake by Aurélien Vernhes-Larmuseaux, winner of the Gan Foundation prize, and The Antique by Rusudan Glurjidze, starring Georgian actress and European Shooting Star 2024 Salome Demiura.”

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed is produced by 36Caballos, Arde Cine (Argentina), Proton Cine (Argentina), Jaibo Films (Spain) and Oublaum Filmes (Portugal). France’s MPM Premium is selling the picture worldwide.