Cousins Belinda and Guillermina are inseparable. They live next door to each other on farms amid the vast plains of Argentina. Their neighbor is Alessandra Sanguinetti, a filmmaker and Magnum photographer. Over the course of 25 years, she follows their childhood games, dreams, emerging desires, and eventually the realities of life in a male-dominated rural community. While filming, Sanguinetti also took photographs, which briefly appear in the documentary.
The result is a tender portrait of female friendship, built on deep trust in each other and in the filmmaker. As the years pass, the film increasingly becomes a record of what changes and what remains the same in the transition to adulthood—which can sometimes arrive sooner than expected.
Sanguinetti’s feature-length debut is a monumental undertaking. What sets it apart from other long-term projects is the compactness of the finished film. Rather than drawing out the drama for effect, Sanguinetti opts for a subtlety that is perfectly in balance with the film’s surprising ending.
