Rosalinda, Viola

Matías Piñeiro initiated his Shakespeare cycle with Rosalinda, a beguiling variation on As You Like It. A troupe of young Buenos Aires actors heads into the woods to rehearse their production of the classic farce. After the lead actress receives a troubling phone call just before the run-through, she drifts through the performance and the boundaries between life and theater become hazier as both she and her character become the cast’s shared object of desire. (45 mins., DCP) In Viola, Piñeiro’s breakthrough film and a delightfully inventive meditation on Twelfth Night, the title character works as a bike courier delivering bootleg DVDs around Buenos Aires. When she meets a group of young women rehearsing a mash-up of several of Shakespeare’s plays, the film blossoms into a dreamlike, intimate narrative of romantic intrigue. (65 mins., DCP)