{"id":36519,"date":"2026-08-10T13:47:31","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T08:47:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=36519"},"modified":"2026-08-10T13:47:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T08:47:31","slug":"locarnos-illusion-of-an-everlasting-summer-unpacked-by-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=36519","title":{"rendered":"Locarno&#8217;s &#8216;Illusion of an Everlasting Summer&#8217; Unpacked by Director"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tIn the Argentine Pampas, cousins Guillermina and Belinda cannot wait to grow up. When they are not swimming in the river and dancing through the long, breezy afternoons, they re-enact funeral ceremonies and feign surgery on dead animals. This quotidian desire to accelerate the inevitable passing of time animates photographer <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/alessandra-sanguinetti\/\" id=\"auto-tag_alessandra-sanguinetti\" data-tag=\"alessandra-sanguinetti\">Alessandra Sanguinetti<\/a>\u2019s debut feature, \u201cThe Illusion of an Everlasting Summer.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tPresented in world premiere in Filmmakers of the Present at the 79th edition of the <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/locarno-film-festival\/\" id=\"auto-tag_locarno-film-festival\" data-tag=\"locarno-film-festival\">Locarno Film Festival<\/a>, the film was produced by distinguished director-producer <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/julia-solomonoff\/\" id=\"auto-tag_julia-solomonoff\" data-tag=\"julia-solomonoff\">Julia Solomonoff<\/a> (\u201cNobody\u2019s Watching\u201d), with financing from Mubi and Impact Partners.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tSanguinetti\u2019s gaze follows Guille and Belinda while they grow up, fall in love, raise children and slowly drift toward separate lives over two and a half decades. The seemingly home-footage structure forms a familiar and intimate setting, in which the grainy footage narrates the life passing between the moments Sanguinetti captured as part of her extensive, decades-long photography of close cousins Guille and Belinda.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re just like extended family now,\u201d says the director about her relationship with the duo, spanning over 25 years. \u201cIt was really organic. I did not want to make a project about two women growing up. I just knew them and wanted to be with them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tStatic framing and pixelated vignettes of tranquil farmland in Sanguinetti\u2019s work trace back to formal similarities to\u00a0\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2025\/film\/reviews\/dry-leaf-review-1236487253\/\">Dry Leaf<\/a><em>,\u201d<\/em> directed by Alexandre Koberidze, another Locarno title, screened in 2025. The Argentinian prairie is adorned with imaginary houses, castles and theatres as the young girls construct spontaneous, invisible cities, stories and games in which Koberidze\u2019s likewise unseen characters could live. Lively farm animals populate the backgrounds against which Guille and Belinda confidently perform their silly and earnest singing and dancing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tAlthough the result bears some resemblance, the two directors employ the graininess for different aesthetic reasons. In Sanguinetti\u2019s practice, the video camera appeared as a natural prop that watched and filmed Belinda and Guille\u2019s performances while the director captured with her photographic camera \u201cwhat happens slowly in the moment.\u201d Comparing photography to video, she says about her relationship with the first, \u201cI\u2019m always more in control and looking for something. With video, I could let life flow in front of me and then later think about what to retrieve or not.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThese snapshots of life, then overlooked as common moments, might be actually foundational to one\u2019s trajectory, as \u201cwe don\u2019t realize that we\u2019re defining ourselves in that moment. You can only see that when you\u2019re at a certain distance, when you\u2019re knowing and loving them, but you\u2019re not being their mother.\u201d This in turn enabled Sanguinetti to observe \u201cpatterns in the girls\u2019 lives \u2014 what kept repeating or changing, what things they had escaped from, and what they achieved through sheer will.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tSanguinetti\u2019s tender film detours through the motions of time and eventually brings fleshiness to her presence. \u201cIn the beginning, I didn\u2019t want to be a part of it. I thought my voice would ruin it. As the time went by, I realized that I was there and I just had to accept it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tIf women constitute the film\u2019s heart, animals form its pulse. Neither pets nor crude products of an economy, Sanguinetti deftly places cattle, dogs and cats alongside people and land. Essential to the farmland Pampas, the girls\u2019 grandmother repeatedly confesses to the director about the joy of taking care of chickens and their innate beauty or the bovines\u2019 way of behaving as a tightly knit community.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThis sentiment is personal for Sanguinetti: \u201cI\u2019ve always considered animals equal to humans,\u201d adding on their importance to the rural ecosystem: \u201cI always felt that the animals in that space were ignored. But these people are here because of the animals in that area, because there is no agriculture.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the Argentine Pampas, cousins Guillermina and Belinda cannot wait to grow up. When they are not swimming in the river and dancing through the long, breezy afternoons, they re-enact funeral ceremonies and feign surgery on dead animals. This quotidian desire to accelerate the inevitable passing of time animates photographer Alessandra Sanguinetti\u2019s debut feature, \u201cThe&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/La-ilusion-de-un-verano-sin-fin-Copyright-Alessandra-Sanguinetti.jpg?w=1000&h=563&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}