Las Acacias.

Anahi, Jacinta and Rubin.

The lonely truck driver Rubin.

 Who would have thought that such a simple story line would make such a wonderful and emotive movie? Co written, produced and directed by Argentinian Pablo Giorgelli Las Acacias (2011) is a slow paced film about a truck driver who spends his working life in the cab of his vehicle transporting logs on the highway that links Asuncion in Paraguay to Buenos Aires in Argentina. Into this closed isolated world come’s single mother Jacinta (non-actor Hebe Duarte) and her 8-month-old baby Anahi. Rubin (German de Silva) has been asked by his boss to take them across the Paraguayan border and drop them off at Jacinta’s cousins in Buenos Aires, much to his disapproval. It’s this journey and the reactions between the three that forms the basis of Giorgelli’s debut film.

Single mum Jacinta

As I have said previously the pace is slow with most of the action playing out within the cab of the lorry. There’s minimal dialog with hardly a word said for a large part of their journey but with the superb facial and body language between Rubin and his fellow passenger’s who needs words, its completely devoid of any musical soundtrack, in fact the only soundtrack is natural things like traffic, street and birds noises. There are only three protagonists, and one of them is a baby, mind you if they gave film awards for the best on screen baby I’m sure little Nayra Calle Mamani who plays Anahi would win it, she really is gorgeous and will melt your heart. This is a satisfying and rather special film where less is more, a film that has a convincing level of gentle emotional energy and fully deserves the Camera d’Or it won at Cannes this year. Don’t miss it!

The gorgeous Anahi.