Movie Minute - Adiós Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires, November 2001. Argentina is embroiled in crisis, with the peso plunging deeper and deeper. Julio Färber, the charismatic bandoneon player of the "Vecinos de Pompeya," a five-piece working-class tango band, is trying to keep his head above water, but every month he is earning less and less from their gigs as well as from the traditional shoe shop he inherited from his father. At the very moment he takes the decision to leave his beloved Buenos Aires forever, it clearly appears that life is conspiring against him: overnight, the government freezes all bank accounts in the whole country, preventing Julio from purchasing the flight tickets and sparking violent protests throughout the town. And Mariela, a witty young woman and feisty cab driver, bumps into his car at full speed, damaging Julio’s last possession of value before stealing his heart.

The an award-winning screenplay by Stephan Puchner, Fernando Castets and Kral, was inspired by the real tragic events that shook Argentina in late 2001. The government froze all the country's bank accounts from one day to the next, which became known in Argentina as the "Corralito" (little stall). Three weeks later, the December 19 and 20 pot-banging protests in the streets brought down the government at the time.

Opening May 3 in New York Opening May 10 in Los Angeles (Laemmle Royal)  German Kral was born in Buenos Aires and moved to Germany to study film where he graduated from the Munich Film School. He has worked as a film writer and director ever since dividing his time between Munich and Buenos Aires. Kral worked with Wim Wenders between 1993 and 1996 on the film Die Gebrüder Skladanowsky (A Trick of the Light). His graduate film Imágenes de la Ausencia (Images of the Absence) was nominated for the German Grimme Prize in 2001 and won First Prize at the Yamagata Film Festival in Japan in 1999, and the Young Bavarian Documentary Film Award in 2000. Kral’s documentary Música Cubana (2004), a fiction documentary feature, executive produced by Wim Wenders, and had its international premiere at the 2004 Venice Film Festival. Our Last Tango (2015), a German-Argentine coproduction, also executive produced by Wim Wenders, premiered at the Toronto Film Festival before traveling the festivals world-wide and won several awards, including the Bavarian Film Award for best photography, and the audience awards at both the Washington DC Film Festival and the Bolzano Film Festival in Italy. The Last Applause (2009), which he directed and produced, received the FFF Talent Award and the City of Munich’s Starter Film Prize.