Winner of the Best First Feature Award at Frameline San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival, and the Best Argentine Film Award at the Buenos Aires Film Festival (BAFICI), End of the Century was hailed as “the best gay film of the year” (IndieWire), and as "an erotic, emotional imagining of a Grindr hookup as memory palace” (The Hollywood Reporter).
In his alluring debut feature, Castro offers both a sun-soaked European travelogue and an epic, decades-spanning romance. When Ocho (Juan Barberini), a 30-something Argentine poet on vacation in Barcelona, spots Javi (Ramón Pujol), a Spaniard from Berlin, from the balcony of his Airbnb, the attraction is subtle but persistent. After a missed connection on the beach, a third chance encounter escalates to a seemingly random hookup. But are these two merely beautiful strangers in a foreign city or are they part of each other’s histories—and maybe even their destinies?
Castro deliberately parses out mystery after mystery, leading the audience on a journey of discovery as the two leading men discover themselves and each other. With sumptuous lensing of a Barcelona summertime and tangible chemistry between the actors, End of the Century is a love story that echoes across time.
END OF THE CENTURY / FIN DE SIGLO
A film by Lucio Castro
(Argentina, 2019, 84 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Now streaming on Vudu and iTunes
Watch the trailer:
