Altered States: cinema that dares to go beyond

Three films exploring new ways of experiencing cinema come to the 41^st Mar del Plata International Film Festival.

Altered States brings together the boldest and most experimental offerings of independent cinema. These are films that challenge narrative and visual conventions, inviting audiences to have a different experience in front of the big screen.

Atlantic Rhapsody, by Kaifeng Zhong, opens the section after winning the latest edition of the Shanghai International Film Festival. The Chinese film follows a supermarket employee who begins suffering from insomnia after cooking a shark. From that moment on, his everyday life becomes a succession of situations as strange as they are unexpected

The section also presents Helmut: Ice and Transitory Eternity, in which renowned Argentine painter Helmut Ditsch makes his directorial debut. In addition to directing, Ditsch stars in the film and composes the score. Alongside actors Joaquín Berthold and Jeanne Goursaud, he brings his artistic universe to cinema in a work of striking imagery and a singular visual experience.

Greek director Theo Papadoulakis rounds out the section with Recrucified, a film set in a dystopian future and starring Italian actor Simone Baldasseroni. It is based on Christ Recrucified, the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis — author of Zorba the Greek and The Last Temptation of Christ, two texts that also made it to the screen. Jules Dassin had already adapted that novel in 1957, and Papadoulakis now offers a new cinematic reading of it.

Three visions that push the boundaries of the known, on the big screen in Mar del Plata.