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The Man Next Door (El hombre de al lado)

Mariano Cohn & Gastón Duprat
Argentina / 2010 / 103 min / Spanish with English subtitles

In The Man Next Door Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat look at what happens when two neighbors from opposite worlds are forced to confront one another's existence. In this black comedy, Leonardo (Rafael Spregelburd) is a prestigious designer who lives with his family in a famous house designed by Le Corbusier.  Life is seemingly ideal for Leonardo until one day his neighbor Victor (Daniel Aráoz), a boorish used-car salesman, breaks through a common wall to make a window in order to "catch a few rays of sun." Unfortunately, Victor's new window looks directly into Leonardo’s living space. As the tension mounts between Leonardo and Victor, the film explores the complex relationships between class differences, social barriers, and right and wrong.  Viewers are kept wondering who will prevail in the continuous conflict and the film finishes with an unexpected ending.  Enamored of architecture, the film is meticulously designed. Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat give it a carefully crafted weirdness as well as a figurative quality. The multiple award-winning film was shot entirely at Casa Curutchet (La Plata, Argentina), an architectural masterpiece and the only house in the Americas designed by Le Corbusier.  

The Man Next Door is one of the many films included in the catalogue of Spanish Film Club.

Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat, have worked extensively together in both television and film. Their first full-length film was the documentary Me President (Yo presidente), a compilation of interviews of various presidents in Argentina’s recent history including Menem, Alfonsín and De la Rua. With The Artist (El Artista) they made their first fiction movie about a male nurse who steals a drawing from one of his patients and try to make a profit from it. Then just one year later, The Man Next Door premiered in Argentina, winning several awards such as the Cinematography Award at the Sundance Film Festival, and Best Film, Director, Best Actor and Best New Actor awards at the Clarin Awards®. The film was also nominated at the Goya® Academy Awards for Best Spanish Language Foreign Film. With their latest film, Honey, I’m going to buy cigarettes and come back in a minute, (Querida Voy a Buscar Cigarrillos y Ahora Vuelvo), they examine the supernatural.

Clarin Awards® 
-Best Director, Best Film, Nominated for Best Cinematography

Goya® Academy Awards 
- Nominated Best Spanish Language Foreign Film

Sundance Film Festival 
- Best Cinematography

Mar de Plata International Film Festival 
- Best Argentinean Feature Film

Toulouse Rencontres Cinemas d’amerique Latine 
- Audience Award.

Quotes

“A film in the true spirit of Sundance, innovative, sharp, truly independent authorship." John Nein, Sundance Programmer.

“The Man Next Door offers a biting critique of moral shallowness”- SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

“This dark comedy of manners is basically built around a single joke (...) but that joke is well told and the cast bustles with charm and energy” – Ben Sachs, THE CHICAGO READER

“Deliciously, the filmmakers gradually nudge us toward the opinion that Victor, this classless man who won't take "no" for an answer, is actually the story's hero” – John DeFore, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER