Hermia & Helena
Young Womanhood • 1h 26m
Matías Piñeiro • 2016 • Argentina-USA • Blends the whimsy of youth with the cadences of theatrical text.
Blending the whimsy of youth with the jocular cadences of theatrical text, Hermia & Helena weaves an ever-expanding web of relations entangling a young woman as she comes into her own.
Camila, a young Argentine theater director, has been recently selected to participate in an artist residency in New York. Leaving her boyfriend and loved ones behind, she travels to the big city, hoping to mount a Spanish version of A Midsummer Night's Dream onstage. Yet soon Camila finds herself distracted by memories of Buenos Aires, a fling with the residency's administrator, and a strange epistolary relationship with Danièle, a recent graduate of the program. Across languages and continents, and immersed in the ever-conflating realms of life and art, Camila discovers new resonances in Shakespeare's formulations of friendship, affection, and love.
Matías Piñeiro's fourth feature film premiered at Locarno, IndieLisboa, Rotterdam, Mar del Plata, New York and Toronto, and is a New York Times Critics' Pick.