The Tenth Man

Ariel believes he has left his past behind. After growing up in the close-knit Jewish community of Buenos Aires he has built a new and to all appearances successful metropolitan life as an economist in New York.

He has come back to his native city to meet his distant father Usher, but for days they miss one another as Usher continues to issue instructions to Ariel for a plethora of errands. Usher’s life’s mission, often to the detriment of his family, is the running of a Jewish aid foundation in El Once, the old Jewish neighborhood of Buenos Aires. Ariel is drawn back into the community and the very role his father plays in it. Along the way, his New York existence is gradually stripped away. After a few days, literally standing in the clothes that he once wore, he meets Eva, a mute, intriguing woman who works at the foundation.

Not coincidentally, Ariel’s visit coincides with Purim, a holiday commemorating the salvation of the Jewish diaspora from annihilation. It is a day of rejoicing in face of the averted disaster, a humorous, carnivalesque occasion that forms the subtext for a comedy of errors of missed and found people and connections, and a rumination on the extent to which we can ever really leave our past behind


Official Selection, 2016 Berlinale Film Festival (Panorama Special Opening Film)

Official Selection, 2016 Tribeca Film Festival