Argentina has become the latest South American country to announce its Academy Award contender selecting Paula Hernández’s The Sleepwalkers / Los sonámbulos as its candidate in the International Feature competition.
Starring Érica Rivas (Wild Tales), Luis Ziembrowski (The Boss, Anatomy of a Crime), and Daniel Hendler (The Moneychanger), the film follows Luisa, who is spending her New Year holiday with her husband and her 14-year-old daughter—a sleepwalker in the teenage awakening—at her mother-in-law’s country house with other family members. Nevertheless, what was hoped to be a leisurely summer vacation turns out to be an explosive occasion. A favorite at numerous international film festivals including Toronto, San Sebastian, and Chicago, The Sleepwalkers is a poignant and engaging drama about a family in crisis.
Argentina is the only Latin American country to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film twice, in 1985 for Luis Puenzo’s The Official Story and in 2009 for Juan José Campanella’s The Secret in Their Eyes. The country has been nominated seven times in the same category.
