Hostage of an Illusion

A collection of shorts, some documentary and some fictional, showing the political climate in Argentina during the military regime of the late 1960s.

A new patient mysteriously appears in a psychiatric ward. He claims to come from another planet to study humans and their behavior. The alien is gentle but criticizes humans for their harsh treatment of each other. The assigned psychiatrist is himself unhappy, and affected by the patient's insight. But he is ordered to treat the patient according to institutional procedure.

Oliveiro is a young poet living in Buenos Aires where sometimes he has to sell his ideas to an advertising agency to make a living or exchange his poems for a steak. In Montevideo, he meets a prostitute, Ana, with whom he falls in love. Back in Buenos Aires, he accepts a contract with a publicity agency to get the money for three days of love with her. Will he get what he's searching for when his ideal of love's pleasure is literally going in levitation while making love?

A mockumentary about three young student filmmakers as they make a movie about an alleged film director living obscurely in a Buenos Aires mental hospital. In their visits to the mental hospital, the three students will forge a very special relationship with the self-styled former film director as they follow different clues and strategies to discover his 'true' identity.

Roberto is an insurance salesman who dreams of writing his own novel. When he meets Estela, a young woman about to commit suicide, it serves him as material to make this work.

The story of a delinquent eleven-year-old orphan in authoritarian Argentina.

A lonely film projectionist through a series of odd events, discovers that he is the reincarnation of one of the inventors of cinema, and that a woman he sees in his dreams is his eternal companion on a trip through centuries.

A man and a woman find themselves trapped inside what appears to be a dream that takes place in the labyrinthine corridors and mysterious rooms of a large hotel located by the sea.

Pablo (Arturo Puig) receives the news that his father, who abandoned him and his family a long time ago and was thought dead, wants to see him so he can pass all his fortune to him. Pablo goes to see his father in Brazil, expecting to inherit a large sum of money, but instead, he receives from his father a treasure map, with the promise that the map will make him rich. After the father dies, Pablo decides to go to an adventure and seek the treasure, aided by the men his father choose as companionship, and by one woman faith choose for him.

A sexy Spanish siren named Elvira schools a young man in tantric lovemaking.

After the death of the village pharmacist, his widow Lina only inherits debts that he must face. Valentin, the old shoemaker, is the main creditor and the exuberant Lina must pay him what he owes, whatever it costs.

The sequel to the blockbuster Argentinean smash hit. After ten years, Oliverio is still intrigued by the works of great poets and continues to search for true love. When he meets the beautiful Miranda, she suggests that they both move in together and find jobs. Oliviero, however, leaves Miranda in search of his first love Ana who he met ten years prior. Once in Barcelona, he realizes that Ana's life has drastically changed and their love is in the past. Soon, he meets poet and circus performer, Alejandra. Oliviero becomes smitten and desperately tries bond with her, but she makes things a little more difficult that he ever imagined.

Rosalía is a cashier at a supermarket. She lives alone, loves reading fairy tales and hides in a magic fantasy world in order to survive living in the real one. She thinks she is a fairy who came on a mission and got caught in this world. She travels by bus every day. At the bus-stop, there is a "web camera" which records images and puts them into the Internet. Santiago is a scientist who works in an international research project to detect signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. He is a lonely man who lives with his dog and his computer. Rosalía finds she has some extra-sensory powers and thinks three young women she knows are fairies. They will remarkably influence her life. She also feels the need to meet her father, whom she has not seen since she was 8.

Ernesto is a journalist in his 40's who comes from a generation which encountered much political persecution and exile; between the memories and unhealed wounds of his past, stands Ernesto. When his good friend Ricardo calls him one day and proposes to get together after 25 years, they decide to gather all the members of the “old gang” in order to revive those old feelings the best way they know how, through some good old rock n' roll. Amongst one of Ernesto's encounters is Ana, an old love who will bring a twisting unexpected turn into his life. The old gang is comprised of Ricardo's depressive, hypochondriac wife Ana and her socially-conscious former lover Ernesto, a journalist who left Ana years ago to pursue his political ideologies in socialist Cuba.

Mabel lives on a slum. Does work as a clown at children's parties and as a prostitute. At 20 crosses paths with Martin, a lawyer just shy of 40. He has divorced his wife and left the law firm he was working on. Buys a trailer and goes to live in it. Advertising for a car wash dressed as a bird he meets Mabel and they fell in love. Later she finds out she's living with HIV. From that moment on, Martin's love will help Mabel fight her battles with death.