{"id":2043,"date":"2026-06-13T10:37:05","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T10:37:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=2043"},"modified":"2026-06-13T10:37:05","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T10:37:05","slug":"locarno-golden-leopard-winner-milagros-mumenthaler-talks-the-currents-visual-memory-and-first-male-led-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=2043","title":{"rendered":"Locarno Golden Leopard Winner Milagros Mumenthaler Talks \u2018The Currents,\u2019 Visual Memory and First Male-Led Project"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tArgentine-Swiss writer-director Milagros Mumenthaler is preparing a new project that will mark a notable shift in her filmography: for the first time, it will center on a young male protagonist.<\/p>\n

Read more Kristin Scott Thomas Receives Crystal Nymph From Prince Albert II at Monte-Carlo Television Festival Opening<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking to Variety <\/em>on Thursday afternoon, June 11, after her ECAM Forum masterclass in Madrid, Mumenthaler said the film is still at a very early stage and has no working title. \u201cThe only thing I\u2019m calling it now is \u2018rom-drama,\u2019\u201d she said, describing it as a drama with a love-story element.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI imagined a young male character,\u201d Mumenthaler added. \u201cThere was something I felt I still owed to my younger self, something more connected to a love story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked whether the project would again be structured as a Switzerland-Argentina production, as has often been the case in her work, Mumenthaler said that remains open. \u201cMaybe we\u2019ll add another country,\u201d she said. \u201cOne always wants to, but it doesn\u2019t always happen. I\u2019m just starting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe comments followed a public masterclass in which Mumenthaler discussed how she builds films from images, locations, objects, sound and the physical state of her characters.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe session formed part of a retrospective taking in her latest feature, \u201cThe Currents,\u201d her 2016 second film \u201cThe Idea of a Lake,\u201d and her Locarno Golden Leopard-winning debut \u201cBack to Stay.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nBeginning with an Image<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFor me, the first thing that happens when I start a film is to capture a sensation or a state of mind,\u201d Mumenthaler said. \u201cIn general, it comes through an image.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat method could already be seen in \u201cBack to Stay,\u201d her 2011 debut about three sisters living in the family house after the death of the grandmother who raised them. The film won Locarno\u2019s Golden Leopard, best actress for Mar\u00eda Canale and the Fipresci prize.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn Madrid, Mumenthaler explained how central that house was to the film\u2019s design. \u201cThe house is home,\u201d she said, stressing that she did not want the single-location setting to feel claustrophobic. Windows, changes in weather, clothes hanging outside and the movement of the sisters in and out of rooms were used to keep the outside world present.<\/p>\n

\n\tHer main idea was to treat the camera as linked to the absent grandmother. \u201cI thought the camera could be like a presence of the absent being,\u201d Mumenthaler said. That decision shaped the film\u2019s long takes, group framings and slow movements through the rooms.<\/p>\n

\n\tObjects also carried family history: dresses, stored belongings, a corset that once belonged to the grandmother. \u201cThere was something about the history that objects can have,\u201d she said, describing them as traces of the past still active in the present.<\/p>\n

Read more Zhang Disha\u2019s Sci-Fi \u2018The Decisive Moment\u2019 to Close Shanghai Film Festival<\/a><\/p>\n

\nMemory, Format and Material<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tHer second feature, \u201cThe Idea of a Lake,\u201d adapted freely from Guadalupe Gaona\u2019s autobiographical book of photographs and poems \u201cPozo de aire,\u201d moved from the family house to political and personal memory. The film follows a pregnant woman confronting the disappearance of her father during Argentina\u2019s dictatorship.<\/p>\n

\n\tMumenthaler said she felt a responsibility toward the material because it came from real pain. She worked from Gaona\u2019s book, family photographs, conversations with the author and trips to the house in southern Argentina that shaped the original text.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor the film, she tested Super 8, 16mm, 35mm and HD before choosing Super 16. \u201cIt was very beautiful to do that work,\u201d she said. \u201cThe same image in each format gives back something very different.\u201d She added: \u201cI\u2019m in love with 35mm. For me, it is the definitive format of cinema.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Idea of a Lake\u201d also sharpened a question that runs through Mumenthaler\u2019s work: how to show thought and memory without explaining too much. \u201cHow can intimate thought, or an intimate state of mind, be represented through images and sounds?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

\n\u2018The Currents\u2019: Inside Lina\u2019s Crisis<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tThat question becomes more direct in \u201cThe Currents,\u201d her third feature, which world premiered at Toronto and went on to San Sebasti\u00e1n, where it won the RTVE Otra Mirada Award. Sold internationally by Luxbox and released in U.S. arthouses by Kino Lorber, the film stars Isabel Aim\u00e9 Gonz\u00e1lez Sola as Lina, a woman who throws herself into the freezing waters of Geneva and then returns to Buenos Aires as if nothing had happened.<\/p>\n

\n\tGuy Lodge, reviewing \u201cThe Currents\u201d for Variety<\/em>, called the film an \u201celegant, elusive Argentine character study\u201d and highlighted its \u201cmeticulous, silkily textured formal construction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMumenthaler said the film was built around Lina\u2019s perception. \u201cEverything that is seen in the film has to do with seeing it through her,\u201d she said. That meant shaping sound, wind, water, city noise and gestures from inside the character\u2019s crisis, including an early metallic noise that \u201chad to do with something only she is perceiving.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSeveral passages in \u201cThe Currents\u201d follow women Lina sees in Buenos Aires, moments Mumenthaler described as \u201cflights of thought,\u201d connected to Virginia Woolf\u2019s \u201cMrs. Dalloway.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tColor, too, was tied to Lina\u2019s condition: Mumenthaler imagined Buenos Aires as an old, grey city, with Lina standing out through stronger colors. \u201cIt was not so much naturalism,\u201d she said. \u201cFor me, it responded to fiction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked about her next project after the masterclass, Mumenthaler again described the process as instinctive. \u201cI usually begin projects in a very genuine way,\u201d she said. \u201cThis character [the young male protagonist] came into my head, and I wanted to do something with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Shanghai Film Fest Launches Tech Unit, Reveals AI Industry Push<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Argentine-Swiss director Milagros Mumenthaler talks her next film, a \u2018rom-drama,\u2019 \u2018The Currents,\u2019 memory, sound and image at Madrid\u2019s ECAM Forum<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1748,1166,1328,1749,1750],"class_list":["post-2043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","tag-back-to-stay","tag-ecam-forum","tag-milagros-mumenthaler","tag-the-currents","tag-the-idea-of-a-lake"],"yoast_head":"\nLocarno Golden Leopard Winner Milagros Mumenthaler Talks \u2018The Currents,\u2019 Visual Memory and First Male-Led Project - Relocation Observer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=2043\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Locarno Golden Leopard Winner Milagros Mumenthaler Talks \u2018The Currents,\u2019 Visual Memory and First Male-Led Project - 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