Argentina’s ‘El jockey’ wins best Latin American film at San Sebastián film festival

Domestic production El Jockey (“The Jockey”) has been awarded the ‘Horizontes’ award for best Latin American film at the San Sebastián Film Festival.

The film, directed by Luis Ortega, was competing with 13 co-productions from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela at the festival in the northern Spanish city.

“Thank you for this immense recognition of our film and our cinema,” said Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, the film's protagonist, in his acceptance speech.

He went on to criticise the cuts introduced by Javier Milei's government since taking office as he accepted the award, highlighting the impact on the domestic film industry.

“Behind this self-delusion in which they live, this hatred they profess, there is no freedom. There is simply a profound loneliness. They may try, but they are not going to destroy us, we are not going to destroy ourselves. Long live Argentine cinema!” said Pérez Biscayart.

Milei's government, which has moved to drastically reduce state spending in the midst of a severe economic crisis, has imposed deep spending cuts at the INCAA national film institute. 

The trimming has included the suspension of support programmes and the dismissal of many of its employees, which has left the INCAA virtually paralysed.

El Jockey, which has been selected as Argentina’s nomination for the Oscars, narrates in a dreamlike tone the transformation of an equestrian jockey in the pay of gangsters in Buenos Aires.

A drug addict and tormented, he suffers a fall during a race that lands him in hospital, but which in reality is the first step towards a total questioning of his identity.

To get to know himself, and to escape from the hitmen, he escapes from the hospital and embarks on a delirious walk through a surreal Buenos Aires.

– TIMES/AFP