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Matías Piñeiro once again uses Shakespeare as his jumping-off point in this magical, playful tale of two cities.
Taking on an artistic residency vacated by her friend Carmen, Argentinean theatre director Camila arrives in New York with the intention of translating A Midsummer Night's Dream into Spanish. Hoping to meet up with her former lover, an experimental filmmaker, Camila quickly falls into a romance with the young director of the institute, as echoes of the play she's working on resound in flashbacks to her life in Buenos Aires, a mysterious postcard exchange and a climactic meeting with her biological father.
Shooting in the US for the first time, Matías Piñeiro (The Princess of France, MIFF 2014; Viola, MIFF 2013) continues his project of transposing Shakespearean themes into a contemporary urban setting. Featuring excellent performances by his regular acting troupe and cameos by directors Mati Diop, Dan Sallitt and Dustin Guy Defa (whose Person to Person is also screening at MIFF 2017), this is another dreamy, beguiling work of love triangles and non-linear timeframes.
'[Hermia & Helena] may be Piñeiro's most inspired and thrilling work to date, exhaustive in its means of keeping the viewer off balance and yet rich in its emotional implications.' – Slant
