Nobody's Watching
(Nadie nos mira)
Julia Solomonoff | Drama, Fiction
2017 | 102 minutes | Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, United States
A fresh and unexpected take on the immigrant tale, where the journey is not to get a green card but confronting the true reasons for leaving home and redefining one’s identity in one’s own terms.
Synopsis
What happens when a man who is accustomed to being the centre of attention finds himself becoming invisible? When a life busked from cash in hand jobs trips into freefall? Julia Solomonoff’s delicately textured character study follows Nico, the former star of an Argentinian soap opera, who trades autograph hunters for anonymity and moves from Buenos Aires to New York to take a role in an indie movie. When the project stalls, he chooses to stay believing that his talent will help him find success. Too blond to play Latino and his accent too strong to play anything else, Nico falls through the cracks and must juggle odd jobs to survive. Unwilling to return home and be seen as a failure, Nico manages to stay afloat thanks to his ability to pretend to be something he isn’t.
Nobody’s Watching is a fresh and unexpected take on the immigrant tale, where the journey is not to get a Green card but confronting the true reasons for leaving home, and redefining one’s identity in one’s own terms.
Reviews
"NYT Critic's Pick. There's a slight and not unpleasing paradox at the heart of Julia Solomonoff's smart and engaging new movie, Nobody's Watching. It is an uncommonly unhurried film about a character for whom time is running out." — Glenn Kenny, The New York Times
"Solomonoff has crafted an arresting tale of privilege and displacement, of the ironies of navigating American society as an outsider, of what newcomers expect of New York and what it actually offers." — Alan Scherstuhl, The Village Voice
"The film ripples with a palpable sense of the sheer distance between Nico and his goals. And it's this careful attention to narrative rhythm that strikes at the heart of the interminable sense of postponement that greets Nico at every juncture and underscores the social challenges he (or any other undocumented immigrant) faces." — Peter Goldberg, Slant
Citation
Main credits
Lazaridi, Christina (screenwriter)
Solomonoff, Julia (screenwriter)
Solomonoff, Julia (film director)
Raffo, Felicitas (film producer)
Pfening, Guillermo (actor)
Roger, Elena (actor)
Ferro, Rafael (actor)
Caponi, Marco Antonio (actor)
Other credits
Cinematography, Lucio Bonelli; music, Sacha Amback; editing, Karen Sztanjberg, Andrés Tambornino, Pablo Barbieri.
Citation
Cataloging
Pragda subjects
Culture + Identity
Gender + Sexuality Studies
Labor Studies
Latinx
Migration Studies
North America
Race + Ethnicity
Sociology
Urban Studies
Keywords
Clips
Festivals
Havana Film Festival
Tribeca Film Festival - Best Actor
Gijón International Film Festival
Calgary International Film Festival
Rome Film Festival
Vancouver LatAm Film Festival
DIRECTOR: Julia Solomonoff
NATIONALITY: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, United States
YEAR: 2017
GENRE: Drama, Fiction
LANGUAGE: Spanish; English
COLOR / B&W: Color
GRADE LEVEL: College, Adults
SUBTITLE/CC: AVAILABLE
AUDIO DESCRIPTION: NOT AVAILABLE
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