Announced on Tuesday as one of 10 films playing the 2021 Sundance World Cinema Dramatic Competition, “El Perro Que No Calla” (“The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be Quiet”), from distinguished Argentine auteur Ana Katz, has been acquired by Paris-based Luxbox.
A doyen of French sales agents of Latin American films, handling high-profile, multi-prized art titles such as Benjamín Naishtat’s “Rojo” and Marcelo Martinessi’s “The Heiresses,” Luxbox will handle international sales rights to “The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be Quiet.”
A midlife coming of age comedy-drama come political parable, “The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be Quiet” turns on Sebastian, in his 30s, devoted to his loyal dog, who haltingly initiates adulthood, navigating love, loss and fatherhood.
In a narrative that captures the current Zeitgeist, Sebastian’s turbulent life is suddenly turned upside-down by catastrophe. He spends his life battling to adjust and transform in a vertiginous world that might be coming to an end.
“The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be Quiet” is shot in stark black and white, linking together slices of Sebastian’s life that are, Luxbox said in a written statement, both specific and universal.
“When imagination has no limit but reality, while inspiration goes beyond this reality, Ana Katz delighted us with this bittersweet comedy. The Argentine director offers us a breath of freshness. Be ready to finally find again your smile under a mask,” said Luxbox founders Fiorella Moretti and Hédi Zardi.
One of the leading lights of a second wave of distaff directors that broadened the New Argentine Cinema, Katz has made her name for shrewd, understated observation of human frailty, often in some kind of low-key family context. She won the 2016 best screenplay award at Sundance’s 2016 World Cinema Dramatic Competition for “My Friend From the Park” and then scored a Special Jury and Fipresci Prize at Karlovy Vary with 2018’s “Florianópolis Dream.”
In this sense, “The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be Quiet” looks like something of a departure from the bathetic humor of past movies, in its larger political dimension and stylistic adventure. “This film is highly intuitive, it has a collective yet deeply personal identity. It really expresses who I am,” said Katz, praising Sundance for its curatorship that “always goes for an broad perspective, breaking down the hegemony of conventional discourses and giving room [for us] to keep rethinking the world.”
“The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be Quiet” is “a profound and political film. We adopted a specific production design, working with a group of people who became the soul and the driver of this adventure,” added Laura Huberman, who produced with Katz. Buenos Aires-based Oh My Gómez! co-produced.
