The San Sebastián International Film Festival, which has always celebrated great cinema throughout its 73-year history, is not afraid of streaming media services, and has in fact selected a Netflix film to open the 2025 edition. However, considering the country of production, the decision makes more sense than it seems: an Argentine film – also to celebrate the Spanish festival’s historic closeness to Latin American cinema – knowing that in recent years, the ultra-liberal president Milei has essentially eliminated public funding for the cultural industry. If Argentine cinema continues to produce works of value, it is thanks to private investment.
The disadvantage of limited circulation in theaters is offset by worldwide distribution: Daniel Hendler’s 27 Nights (27 noches), after its preview for the audicence of the opening in San Sebastián, will be available to all Netflix subscribers after just one month. And for those who watch it, this dramatic comedy about old age and the self-sufficiency of the elderly, based on a novel inspired by a real-life story that took place before a new mental health law was passed in 2010 (concerning the 88-year-old Argentine artist Natalia Kohen), will be a pleasant discovery.
In cinematic fiction, the name of the main character is Martha Hoffman is Martha Hoffman (played by Marilú Marini): a wealthy elderly woman who has been committed against her will to a psychiatric clinic at the request of her daughters, who claim she has a form of dementia that makes her easily deceived, with the risk of squandering her belongings without realising it (belongings that they hope to inherit in their entirety). Once outside after 27 nights of compulsory hospitalisation, the daughters press charges against her, wanting the legal custody. The judge handling the case appoints expert witness Leandro Casares (played by Daniel Hendler, who is both actor and director) to analyse Martha; what was supposed to be just a psychiatric evaluation becomes a much broader investigation that forces him to go beyond not only his expertise, but also his personal limits.
But the story also has serious implications when it addresses the way diagnoses are made on elderly patients, who risk being deprived of all freedom and autonomy from one day to the next if they are assessed incorrectly. Compulsory hospitalisation is described not as a form of protection, but as arbitrary violence that has purposes far removed from safeguarding the mental health of patients and the peace of mind of their relatives. The story of Martha, who, scene after scene, look very different from the person portrayed in the opening sequence when we are influenced solely by what the two afflicted daughters are saying, effectively balances smiles and bitterness, treating a thorny social issue with the grace of having faith in life.
