Cinema Guild has announced the theatrical release of the romantic-drama The Princess of France / La princesa de Francia by Argentine writer-director Matías Piñeiro. The film opens Friday, June 26 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. This marks the young-filmmaker’s fourth feature-length film and the third film in his Shakespeare-inspired series. Piñeiro’s films singularly create an incredible tension between literature and image— blurring the lines between fiction and reality.
In The Princess of France, Víctor returns to Buenos Aires after his father’s death and a stay in Mexico to prepare a radio production of Love’s Labour’s Lost. Reuniting with his repertory, he finds himself sorting out complicated entanglements with girlfriend Paula, sometime lover Ana, and departed actress Natalia, as well as his muddled relations with the constellation of friends involved with the project.
As the film tracks the group’s crisscrossing movements and interactions, their lives become increasingly enmeshed with the fiction they’re reworking, potential outcomes multiply, and reality itself seems subject to transformation. An intimate work that takes characters and viewers alike into dizzying realms of possibility, The Princess of France is the most ambitious film yet from one of world cinema’s brightest young talents, a cumulatively thrilling experience.
Piñeiro sticks to his original casts from Rosalinda and Viola bringing back Julián Larquier Tellarini, Agustina Muñoz, Alessia Rigo de Righi, María Villar and Romina Paula. Although the cast is still largely female, unlike his other films which tend to focus on female characters, this time Piñeiro shifts his attention to Víctor.
Shot on location in Buenos Aires, The Princess of France, had its world premiere at the Locarno International Film Festival, and has been an official selection at numerous film festivals including Toronto and New York. The film won the prize for Best Argentine Film at the Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival (BAFICI), and the Audience Choice Award at the Chicago International Film Festival.
