Argentina’s Pez Cine and Rechiguana Films are producing Romina Tamburello’s first solo feature film, The Friends of My Parents, in collaboration with Uruguay’s El Cielo Cine and Spain’s Invar Producciones. The film is a fitting film to replicate the positive critical reception and audience success of Vera and the Pleasures of Others, which M-Appeal acquired for worldwide sales.
“The Friends of Myparents,” written by Tamburello, also a playwright, novelist and film director, will be shown at this week’s Málaga Festival MAFF Co-Production Forum, before following the Guadalajara Co-Production Conference in April.
It’s an “intimate autobiographical comedy,” Tamburello told Variety. “My Parents’ Friend” focuses on Cecilia, a 36-year-old who quietly breaks up with her parents when they ask her to help them find a “reliable” swinger club.
Battling multiple prejudices, she begins visiting different locations and discovers “a world of diverse sexualities, nurturing relationships, and unexpected friendships” — in contrast to her own mental breakdown, the synopsis adds.
Cecilia will be played by Camila Peralta, who was nominated for Best Actress and Best New Actress for Cambio, Cambio at the Argentine Film Critics Association Awards, Best Actress for Clara Se Pierde en El Bosque, and Best New Actress for Puan at the Argentine Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Both are scheduled for 2024.
Alejandra Flechner, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Argentina for her performance in Argentina, 1985, co-stars with Luis Ziembrowski, star of Demián Runya’s international blockbuster When Evil Lurks.
“My Parents’ Friend” centers on an area rarely explored in movies: desire in old age. “Based on the real-life experiences of my parents, who began swinging after being diagnosed with cancer, the film uses humor and tenderness to confront generational prejudices and to challenge the positioning of aging bodies as living, erotic and complex beings on screen,” said director Tamburello.
According to Pez Cine producer Santiago King, the film “stages one of cinema’s last great taboos: sexuality in old age. Through humor and emotional honesty, it depicts the body marked by the passage of time as a realm of desire rather than decline,” King added. “The combination of autobiographical familiarity and contemporary perspective gives this work a strong nationalist identity and a distinct international appeal.”
The Friends of My Parents, which has been in development since 2024 at Pez Cine, which has supported Tamburello’s work since 2017, is an adaptation of Tamburello’s novel of the same name, which was published by Penguin Random House Argentina in 2024.
The project is currently being rewritten with script doctor Yolanda Barraza and has won development awards at Argentina’s Espacio Santa Fesino, the Entre Ríos Film Festival (FICER) and the Bariloche Audiovisual Festival (FAB). The Friends of Myparents, which won the second feature film competition of Argentina’s film and television agency INCAA, was selected for the third Extremadura Film Residency, which led to the collaboration with Invar.
“The Friends of My Parents” continues the liberal sex-positive tone of “Vera and the Pleasures of Others,” written and directed by Tamburello and Federico Acutis (“Architecture of Crime”).
Produced by Pez Cine, the film focuses on 17-year-old Bella, who rents out her empty apartment to sex-seeking teens and monitors them as she begins to explore sexual pleasure on her own and with her clients. The film, which had its world premiere at the Tallinn Back Nights Film Festival in 2023, won the Best Director Award in the Argentine Competition at the Mar del Plata Film Festival in 2023, the Critics Award at the D’A Film Festival in Barcelona, Spain in 2024, and the Audience Award at Vancouver International Airport in the same year. Film festival.
A sure-fire crowd-pleaser, “Vera” is available on Argentine cable operator Flow’s streaming service and ranks among the top 10 most-watched movies and series.
