Get ready to watch some Malambo dancing and to board The River Train (El Tren Fluvial) for a trip from the Argentinian countryside to Buenos Aires, on which you will encounter references to the country’s cinematic history! A visceral and mesmerizing coming-of-age tale awaits you.
The River Train, celebrating its world premiere on Monday, Feb. 16, in the Berlin International Film Festival‘s Perspectives section of first features, is the debut film of Lorenzo Ferro, who is so far mostly known as an actor in the likes of El Ángel, Simon of the Mountain, and Narcos, and Lucas A. Vignale, who has made a reputation for himself with directing in the music business. The duo co-wrote and co-directed The River Train after collaborating on the short film La Pasión.
“Nine-year-old Milo is growing up with the pressure to become a great Malambo dancer and the ‘perfect’ son,” reads a synopsis for their first feature. Malambo is a traditional folk dance, traditionally performed by male gauchos. “Milo dreams of taking control of his life and escaping his responsibilities of washing dishes, cooking and practicing the Malambo at night. Milo wants another life. He fantasises about traveling by train and exploring the city of Buenos Aires, which he has seen so many times in the movies and on television.”
But there is a catch. “To break free from his family and the countryside and make his big dreams come true, he must dare to take a new journey: a journey into solitude, and the unknown adventures and pleasures of the big city,” the description concludes.
Non-professional actor Milo Barría stars as Milo in the contemplative movie at the edge of fiction and reality. After all, the ensemble cast also features Rita Pauls, Fabián Casas, as well as members of the young star’s real-life family. Thomas Grinberg served as cinematographer, while Andres Medina and
Vignale handled the editing. Luxbox is handling world sales on the movie produced by Cinco Rayos.
THR can exclusively premiere a trailer for The River Train, which may capture your attention with its hypnotic or rhythmic quality – or both. “Don’t think, speak!” And watch the trailer here.
THR talked to Vignale and Ferro about The River Train, their creative collaboration, and Easter eggs in their debut feature.
The two creatives met the day before the COVID pandemic hit when working on a music video for Ferro. They would spend a lot of time riding around on Vignale’s motorcycle and filming stuff. “So, we became friends on a motorbike, and now we have the same tattoo,” Ferro tells THR.
“We had the idea of turning to fiction and movies, and we slowly transitioned to make a short film first, and then we jumped into making a movie together,” Vignale adds.
Their creative collaboration feels natural. “Lorenzo is the master of text, writing movies and doing the conceptual part, and I really like all the other stuff that is technical,” he shares with THR. “So we combine very well.”
They cast young Milo as Milo, and when they heard from his mother that he had to travel to a Malambo competition, the filmmakers decided to shoot there. “That wasn’t in the script, and we had to go to another city really, really far,” recalls Ferro. “And we had one take, because Milo and his partners went onto the stage one time, and that was the competition. So the one take you see in the film is the only take we had.” Adds Vignale: “It’s a very special thing. So we put it in the movie right away.”
Milo’s on-screen family is his real family, with the rest of the cast of The River Train being a combination of actors and non-professionals. “There is one character who is really special for us in a scene when Milo arrives in Buenos Aires and finds a guy sleeping with his headphones on,” highlights Ferro. “He had only acted in one film in his whole life, when he was nine years old, like Milo, and that movie is a Leonardo Favio film [Chronicle of a Boy Alone], which was one of the greatest inspirations for The River Train.”
The film title is also a nod to Argentina’s creative legacy, namely a poem by Francisco Madariaga called The Almost River Train. The filmmaker duo was considering who could recite that poem in the movie but then found, on YouTube, a recording of Madariaga reciting his poem, which they, of course, picked.
What’s next for the filmmaking duo? “We are now shooting a short film that is a poem,” says Vignale. “With an iPhone,” adds Ferro. “But we are also going to have our own projects,” concludes Vignale. “We’re going to keep doing things alone, and then we will reunite again.”