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SFFILM Festival

History of Fear

Directed by Benjamín Naishtat

Argentina/France/Germany/Qatar/Uruguay | 79

7 May
Wed, May 7, 2014 at 8:45 pm PT
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Description

In an anonymous fast food restaurant, a disturbed young man contorts his body and paralyzes onlookers as if they were hostages held at gunpoint. At a tollbooth, a naked stranger steps in front of a car and its occupants react like he is a suicide bomber. A fence surrounding an affluent Buenos Aires suburb is breached and the residents are certain that some threat will slip through the gap. In fact, paranoia grips every member of the ensemble in Benjamín Naishtat’s thriller, instilling a disorienting sense of dread and enticing the viewer to join in the characters’ hysteria. As History of Fear unfolds on multiple fronts, there are echoes of Neighboring Sounds, the 2012 SFIFF standout from Brazil. Employing a disquieting sound design to great effect, Naishtat displays an aptitude for strangleholds that would earn a stern nod of approval from Michael Haneke. His film may be sprawling in both scope and implications but it’s astonishingly exacting in its execution. As Naishtat’s pawns close ranks for the climax, this young director’s control of technique and tone leaves one in a state similar to those aforementioned fast food customers: waiting on tenterhooks for him to make his next move. –Curtis Woloschuk

Director Benjamín Naishtat

A native of Buenos Aires, Benjamín Naishtat graduated from the city’s Universidad del Cine in 2008 and served as artist-in-residence at Le Fresnoy – Studio National des Arts Contemporains in France until 2011. That year, he marked his homecoming by winning Best Short Film at the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema for The Game (El juego). The subsequent experimental piece History of Evil (Historia del Mal) (2011) examined a dark chapter of Argentina’s past. History of Fear is Naishtat’s first feature film. He continues to live and work in Buenos Aires.

Trailer

//player.vimeo.com/video/90582040?autoplay=1

Film Details

Language Spanish

Original Language Title Historia del miedo

Year 2014

Runtime 79

Country Argentina/France/Germany/Qatar/Uruguay

Director Benjamín Naishtat

Producer Benjamín Doménech, Santiago Gallelli

Writer Benjamín Naishtat

Editor Andrés Quaranta, Fernando Epstein

Cinematographer Soledad Rodríguez

Cast Jonathan Da Rosa, Tatiana Giménez, Mirella Pascual, Claudia Cantero, Francisco Lumerman