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Carlos Sorín (Argentina/Spain 2008)
“I try to hold on to it, for fear of losing it forever,” reflects 80-year-old Antonio, recalling the image of his childhood babysitter. In Argentine filmmaker Carlos Sorín’s The Window, we are acutely aware of the ever-forward motion of time—the inescapable path that consistently delivers the present to the past. The significance of this is not lost on the bedridden Antonio, determined to prepare a perfect homecoming for his long-estranged son, who left the old Patagonian hacienda for Europe years earlier. As he waits for his son’s visit, confined to his room by doctor’s orders, a look out the window stirs within him the desire for one last walk through his fields, the need to relish the loveliness of the landscape and experience the vibrancy of life. What results is not simply a moving meditation on aging and death, but an elegantly lyrical and humanistic film. Sorín tells one of his “minimal” stories here, as he did with his earlier masterpiece, Historias Mínimas (SFIFF 2003), in which seemingly inconsequential moments and details come together in a synthesis of life-affirming beauty. The Window demonstrates the capacity of cinema to reveal hidden truths imperceptible to the naked eye yet perceived by our hearts. —Jeremy Quist  (80 min, Film Movement)

Showtimes: 2:05, 4:55, 7:25, 9:30. Saturday and Sunday matinees at 11:50.

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Written by Pedro Maizal, Carlos Sorín. Photographed by Julián Apezteguia. With Antonio Laretta, María del Carmen Giménez, Emilse Roldán.
July 17–23, 2009
Sundance Kabuki Cinemas
DEVELOPER'S NOTE: http://sffs.org/content.aspx?pageid=1102