MUBI, the global distributor and curated film streaming service, has announced the theatrical release of the Argentine-Swiss film Azor, a slow-burn political thriller and the stunning debut from Andreas Fontana, which received its World Premiere at the 2021 Berlin Film Festival and US Premiere at New Directors/New Films. The film will open in New York at IFC Center on September 10, with a nationwide theatrical rollout to follow.
Hailed as “delectably lavish... think John le Carré and Francis Ford Coppola, but set in the world of Swiss banking elites” (The New York Times), "captures the taint of wealth and privilege in a way which shares a blue-blooded kinship with the work of Lucrecia Martel” (Screen International), the remarkably assured debut from director Fontana, Azor invites us into the alluring world of the ultra-wealthy in late 1970s Argentina. With the country in the clutches of a military dictatorship, political violence is always simmering just under the surface. Atmospheric and slyly seductive, this sophisticated political thriller teems with exquisite scenery and ominous conversation.
Set in Buenos Aires, the film follows private banker Yvan (Fabrizio Rongione, the Dardennes' Two Days, One Night) as he arrives from Geneva with his wife Ines (Stéphanie Cléau) to replace a mysteriously missing colleague and placate their moneyed clientele. Moving through the smoke-filled lounges and lush gardens of a society under intense surveillance, he finds himself untangling a sinister web of colonialism, high finance, and a nation’s “Dirty War.”
A highlight from this year’s Berlinale and New Directors/New Films, Azor evocatively depicts the uneasy interplay between wealth and power. Co-written by Argentine filmmaker Mariano Llinás (La Flor), this is a riveting look at international intrigue worthy of John le Carré or Graham Greene.
