13/02/2024 - The new documentary by Argentinian filmmaker Lola Arias portrays women who dance and sing about their past in prison, relive their life as fiction and invent a possible future for themselves

Yoseli has a tattoo of the Eiffel Tower on her back and has always wanted to travel, but she was arrested at the airport for drug trafficking. Nacho is a trans man who was arrested for swindling and started a rock band in jail. Gentle or rough, blonde or shaved, cis or trans, long-term inmates or newly admitted: in this hybrid musical, they all re-enact their lives in a Buenos Aires prison.

This is the synopsis of Reas [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Lola Arias
film profile], the new documentary by Argentinian director Lola Arias, which has been selected for the Forum section of the 74th Berlinale, which will unspool from 15 to 25 February.

Lola Arias is a writer, theatre and film director, a multifaceted artist who brings together people from different backgrounds (war veterans, young refugees, sex workers, etc.) in theatre, film, literature, and visual art projects. Her previous documentary Theatre of War [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] also had its world premiere in Berlinale's Forum, before going on to win several prizes at international festivals.

The director explains, "In 2019, I decided to give a workshop in film and theatre at the women’s prison in Ezeiza as a first step toward doing an artistic project there, and I saw how music and dance brought them happiness and new ways to express themselves, so this idea of making a musical started gaining momentum. In prison, they are constantly watched, not only by the guards but also by the other prisoners. And so the acting and dancing generated a different space within that space: a space of freedom, fantasy, and imagination. It was like they forgot they were there. But then the pandemic came, and we couldn’t enter the prison anymore. So then I turned my thoughts to working outside, with the people who had got out, reconstructing their time in prison in another space, in this case, the real space of a disused prison. At the end, Reas is really an EX film: ex-cons in an ex-prison, reconstructing their stories."

Reas is produced by Argentina's Gema Films, and co-produced by Germany's Sutor Kolonko and Switzerland's Mira Film. France's Luxbox handle international sales.

Check our exclusive trailer below:

(Translated from Spanish)