Luciérnagas

Veracruz in Mexico is the type of port city where everybody is from somewhere else and plans to head of by boat for yet another place. But Ramin from Iran is stuck: with little money, no knowledge of Spanish, few friends and only occasional, casual labouring work, he is assailed by longings and memories. He carries with him only some music (by Kourosh Yaghmaei), a notebook, and a photo of the boyfriend he left behind; a Skype chat with him at an Internet café is frustrating and inconclusive. Can Ramin dare to explore his gay sexuality, in a new way, in this foreign place, where macho and queer (as embodied by fellow worker Guillermo) are so diffcult to tell apart? Eschewing flashbacks to Ramin’s Iranian background, Bani Khoshnoudi splits the narrative to follow both him and resilient local hotel manager Leti, disquieted as she awaits the return visit of her former lover, an insensitive guy who’s now a Texan resident with a small son. Superbly directed, LUCIÉRNAGAS is a film about tentative communication, flashes of empathy, the diffcult, daily process of tolerance and love in a precarious world. Yet even in the least comforting of places, the fireflies of desire beckon. (Adrian Martin)

In the presence of Bani Khoshnoudi and Edwarda Gurrola.