Uruguay has announced The Moneychanger / Así habló el cambista, the fifth feature by director Federico Veiroj (A Useful Life, The Apostate) as its Academy Awards candidate in the foreign language competition. The film starring Daniel Hendler and Dolores Fonzi will be having its world premiere in a few days as part of the Toronto Film Festival, followed by screenings at the San Sebastian and New York film festivals.
A a quirky period thriller set in Montevideo, ripe with mystery, love and deadpan humor that delves into the attractive world of capital flight.In the mid-70s, the regional economy drew a lot of scoundrels into Uruguay. Institutions were bankrupted; there was a military government; the subversives were behind bars and, for certain sections of the Brazilian and Argentinian economies with a low reputation, the Uruguayan financial market seemed like an ideal place to make money disappear.
This is when Humberto Brause begins a meteoric race in the buying and selling of foreign currency, sponsored by his own father-in-law, a veteran in the business of capital flight. But blinded by his excessive ambition, Humberto tramples everything and everyone in his path until he’s gotten his hands on the family business and accepts a suspicious assignment: laundering the largest sum of money he has ever seen.
This mark the second film by Veiroj to represent Uruguay at the Oscars, after the country selected A Useful Life in 2010. The South American nation has not yet to nabbed an Academy Award nomination.
