Skip to main content
Puan film image

Puan

This event has passed

Canadian Premiere

Marcelo Pena is a distinguished professor of philosophy at a university in Buenos Aires. His mentor, the beloved head professor Caselli, has suddenly died, leaving a coveted vacancy. On paper, Marcelo seems like the perfect man to take up the job and carry on Caselli’s legacy. The trouble is that with every passing day Marcelo’s life is becoming messy, humiliating, and tiresome. To make matters worse, there is a new philosopher in town, one trained in Europe who is younger, better-looking, wealthier, and Marcelo’s new arch-nemesis. Puan presents a compelling story of a man equipped with the answers to life’s greatest moral, ethical, and existential quandaries, who is helpless in the face of political, bureaucratic, and social chaos. Co-directed by Maria Alché and Benjamin Naishtat (Rojo), the film wittily questions the pertinence of philosophy in the life of a modern man in the modern world. Like Plato after the death of Socrates, lead actor Marcelo Subiotto convincingly portrays a man who has lost his guiding light.

 

Supported by

Directors
Cast

Marcelo Subiotto, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Julieta Zylberberg, Alejandra Flechner, Andrea Frigerio, Mara Bestelli

Credits
Country of Origin

Argentina/Italy/France/
Germany/Brazil

Year

2023

Series

Panorama

Language

In Spanish with English subtitles

Film Contact
18+
107 min
Comedy Drama Women Directors

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits

Producer

Bárbara Francisco Mendivil, Barbara Sarasola Day, Federico Eibuszyc

Screenwriter

María Alché, Benjamín Naishtat

Cinematography

Hélène Louvart

Editor

Livia Serpa

Directors

Maria Alché headshot

Maria Alché

María Alché is an Argentine director, script writer and actress. She studied Filmmaking at ENERC, where she currently teaches directing actors, and studied Philosophy at the University of Buenos Aires. She directed the short films Noelia, Gulliver, Invierno 3025 and Quién se metió con Mayra?, presented at several international film festivals. She wrote and directed the feature film Familia Sumergida, which won Best Film in Horizontes Latinos at the San Sebastián Film Festival and several other international prizes.

Filmography: A Family Submerged (2018)

Benjamin Naishtat headshot

Benjamin Naishtat

Benjamín Naishtat studied film in Universidad del Cine, Buenos Aires. He furthermore took part in the Contemporary Arts program of Le Fresnoy, France, and was granted a Radcliffe/Film Studies Center Fellowship from Harvard University. He wrote and directed Rojo (2018) which was selected in Official Competition at the San Sebastián Film Festival, awarded with the Concha de plata for best direction, best cinematography and best actor for Darío Grandinetti. Benjamín wrote and directed El movimiento (2015), Best Argentine film at the Festival de Mar del Plata and the Jury Award-winner at the Valdivia Festival.

Filmography: Historia Del Miedo (2014); El Movimiento / The Movement (2015); Rojo (2018)

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Dir. Mike Nichols
131 min

A young couple accept an invitation for a nightcap with history professor George (Richard Burton) and his wife Martha (Elizabeth Taylor). At first it's fun and games. But what passes for caustic wit soon degenerates into vicious mind games.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema
Drop Dead City
Drop Dead City film image; someone holding a newspaper up in front of a brick wall

Drop Dead City

Dir. Michael Rohatyn & Peter Yost
108 min

New York, 1975. The city is minutes away from bankruptcy and President Gerald Ford wants no part of it. Sanitation workers are on strike and cops are telling tourists it's not safe to visit. The town is going up in flames and they can't pay the firemen.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Shall We Dance?

Dir. Masayuki Suô
137 min

Masayuki Suô's delightful and charming 1996 film was a box office smash and won 14 Japanese Academy Awards including Best Film. It's the story of a married salaryman who falls in love with... dance.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

In the Mood for Love

Dir. Wong Kar-wai
107 min

Wong Kar-wai's most acclaimed and popular film is a love story about two neighbours (Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung) who are drawn together by the long absences of their respective spouses + a newly released short companion piece from 2001.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema
Georgia O'Keeffe: the Brightness of Light
Georgia O’Keeffe: The Brightness of Light film image; painted reds, pinks, oranges, and yellows that combine to look like a flower

Georgia O'Keeffe: the Brightness of Light

Dir. Paul Wagner
118 min

Drawing on her copious correspondence and the world's leading scholars, this is a definitive documentary on the life and work of "the mother of American Modernism."

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Familiar Touch

Dir. Sarah Friedland
90 min

A loving portrait of an octogenarian transitioning into an assisted living facility, this award-winning first feature by choreographer Sarah Friedland has a simplicity and warmth that's exceptionally poignant.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre