Nieves runs a small recreational pool with her son. One summer, a biker falls in love with her, but the romance seems doomed. Everything changes with the arrival of a filmmaker, who decides to include both of them in her new movie. As they become film actors, the boundaries between fiction and their emotions will begin to blur.
A Heart as Willing
Chile / 78 min / 2025 / fiction
North American Premiere
in Spanish with English subtitles
Direction: Diego Soto
Screenplay: Diego Soto
Cinematography: Manuel Vlastelica
Editing: Diego Soto, Manuela Thayer
Producers: Diego Soto, Manuel Vlastelica
Cast: Natacha García, Germán Insunza, Martín Insunza, Isidora Gálvez, Felipe González, Alexis Donoso
Diego Soto’s follow up to Deaths and Wonders showcases two things: first, the lucidity of Soto’s staging which hides nothing and yet remains ambiguous in its aims; and second, the investment in the patient rhythms of the small town of Rancagua, one hour south of Santiago. Soto manages to make strange meta-fictional moves that are immediately unexpected and yet feel natural - by the time the opening credits roll we have already seen the sound guy and Diego Soto himself in the frame, the camera catching them unawares from a distance. A romantic suitor is turned away, but through the staging of a fictional romance, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, something new is able to emerge: a ridiculous image, a man placing a can on top of his head and walking toward his beloved. What is going on in this strange, small romance? - Jhon Hernandez