Argentina has selected Laura Casabé’s acclaimed The Virgin of the Quarry Lake / La virgen de la tosquera as its official submission for Best International Feature Film at the 99th Academy Awards. The film was chosen by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of Argentina from a four-film shortlist that also included Juan Cabral and Santiago Franco’s El partido, Lucrecia Martel’s documentary Our Land / Nuestra tierra, and Juan José Campanella’s Parque Lezama.
The selection continues a strong international run for Casabé’s supernatural coming-of-age film, which had its world premiere in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and later screened in New York at the 54th New Directors/New Films, presented by Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art. It went on to win the Grand Prize in the Argentine Competition at BAFICI and the Best Cinematography Award for Diego Tenorio at the Sitges Film Festival.
Based on two short stories by acclaimed Argentine writer Mariana Enríquez, The Virgin of the Quarry Lake was directed by Casabé from a screenplay by Benjamín Naishtat. Set during Argentina’s turbulent summer of 2001, the film follows Natalia, a teenager who has fallen desperately in love with her childhood friend Diego. When the older and more experienced Silvia captures his attention, Natalia turns to her grandmother and begins experimenting with dark incantations and curses, unleashing forces that blur the boundaries between adolescent desire, jealousy, violence, and the supernatural.
The Argentina-Mexico-Spain co-production stars Dolores Oliverio alongside Fernanda Echevarría, Luisa Merelas, Isabel Bracamonte, Candela Flores, and Agustín Sosa. The Virgin of the Quarry Lake will also represent Argentina in the Best Ibero-American Film category at Spain’s Goya Awards, following its selection earlier this month.
Argentina has one of Latin America’s most distinguished histories at the Academy Awards. The country has received multiple nominations for Best International Feature Film and has won the award twice: for Luis Puenzo’s The Official Story in 1986 and Juan José Campanella’s The Secret in Their Eyes in 2010.
