XXY - Latin American Season #DirectedByWomen

Our regular Latin American Cinema screening this month switches to a Friday night. From Argentina, we are showing Lucia Puenzo's directorial debut XXY.

Alex (Inés Efron, Amorosa Soledad, Glue) is a 15-year-old with a secret. What she hides is something that has driven her family to the windswept outer-reaches of the Uruguayan shoreline. Her father, Kraken (Ricardo Darín, Nine Queens) wants what is best for his daughter, yet knows she cannot go on living the life she leads. For Alex is intersexual, yet all she wants is to be left alone, to be herself.

Before long an old family friend, who is also a plastic surgeon, is invited to stay at their isolated cabin, along with his teenage son Álvaro (Martín Piroyansky). As Alex realises the disturbing ramifications of the visit, she develops a relationship with Álvaro that is far from conventional…

Highly acclaimed and the subject of much debate, XXY is the intimate coming-of-age portrayal of a teenager torn between the love of her parents, her own personal desires, and the daunting, inevitable path into adulthood.