Argentinean director Sebastián Borensztein has presented his new feature film, Descansar en paz, a tragic thriller about family relationships, which arrives on Netflix on 27 March. 
It is a film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Martín Baintrub. Borensztein revealed that he tried to remain faithful to the spirit of the work, while also trying to make the characters less odious than in the original text. 

However, the director noted that Baintrub wasn’t involved in the adaptation because – based on previous experience – he believes that it’s good to keep the original author of a novel at a distance. 'The writer always finds it hard to understand that while the book is one thing, the film is another', he stressed. 

The filmmaker described the film as tragic and dark, in which each shot aims to convey as much emotion as possible. Actor Joaquín Furriel plays the main character, who, drowning in debt, takes advantage of an assassination attempt to disappear and save his family. 

Specifically, he was injured in the car bomb attack against the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina in 1994, and he takes advantage of the event to disappear and start a new life in Paraguay. Both his wife – played by Griselda Siciliani – and the rest of his family, leave him for dead.

On the differences between the film and the play, he also wanted to point out that in the book the main character was more ungrateful. 'In the attack, his character wasn’t injured, but he threw his briefcase into the rubble so that he would be presumed dead'. And for the director that was very unempathetic. His wife, played by Griselda Siciliani, was also more of a liar and speculator, a woman who was unfaithful from the get-go. 

Siciliani also explained that she has had to completely change the register she was used to with her role to immerse herself in a tragedy such as this one, as she’s normally more closely linked to comedy. 

'We worked with a lot of heart and enthusiasm. Celebrating that with the screening in Malaga is a great way to start the journey that awaits us', she said proudly at the press conference after the screening of the film. 

The filmmaker took advantage of the press conference to criticise the cuts in cinema announced by Argentinean president Milei, which he considers to be unjustified. 'It’s true that the country lacks resources and that it’s going through a crisis, but personally, I think it’s a mistake to think that these deficiencies be counteracted with cuts to culture. A country that reduces its cultural resources will pay for it in the future, because it’s cutting off part of its identity', he said.