Prince, the darkly humorous solo feature debut by Uruguayan filmmaker Federico Borgia, will have its World Premiere at the 70th BFI London Film Festival this October. Set against the fading seaside luxury of Punta del Este, the Uruguayan-Argentine co-production is a sharp, stylish, and absurdist exploration of inheritance, class, domestic friction, and existential confusion, starring Roberto Suárez (The Saint), Maitina De Marco (27 Nights), and Esteban Bigliardi (Society of the Snow, The Delinquents).
At the heart of the film is Jaime (Suárez), a former lover turned live-in butler to Isabel (De Marco), an affluent Argentine woman with whom he has shared two decades in an expansive coastal villa. Their peculiar domestic routine revolves around Isabel’s prize-winning Afghan Hound, Prince. When Isabel dies unexpectedly in her swimming pool, her will reveals an absurd condition: her entire luxury estate has been left to Prince, with Jaime appointed as his guardian. Isabel's human relatives can only claim the property once the dog dies.
The fragile arrangement begins to unravel when Isabel's estranged son and granddaughter move in, intent on finding a way to oust the dog. As Jaime struggles to protect Prince from subtle but mounting threats, he is also forced to confront Diego, his own estranged son and a past he has long avoided. Tensions escalate inside the estate, where flickering pool lights, simmering resentments, and competing claims to the property turn the villa into a claustrophobic pressure cooker.
Marking Borgia's first solo feature following his acclaimed co-directed films Clever (2015) and The Champion of the World (2019)—both co-directed with Guillermo Madeiro—Prince showcases the filmmaker’s distinctive cinematic voice and stylized production design. The director draws heavily on his own experience living in Punta del Este, a resort town defined by extreme seasonal contrasts, where high-society glamour gives way to months of empty silence and stark divisions between service workers and property owners.
Rather than leaning on simple satire, the film finds humor and tenderness in the characters’ pettiness and desperation. Rooted in an idea Borgia has carried for decades, stemming from a childhood fascination with show dogs, Prince looks closely at loneliness and the absurd lengths people go to in search of something to anchor themselves to.
