Argentinian photographer Alessandra Sanguinetti has made her directorial debut with “The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer,” a full-length film that captures a quarter-century of rural life in the Pampas through the eyes of two cousins. The film, which premiered at the 79th Locarno Film Festival in August 2026 as part of the Filmmakers of the Present programme, follows Guillermina and Belinda throughout their lives as they mature, experience romance, raise families and gradually drift apart. Produced by Julia Solomonoff and funded through Mubi and Impact Partners, the work combines Sanguinetti’s vast collection of photographs with video footage to create an close study of time’s passage in the rural Argentina.
From Photography to Cinema: A Logical Progression
Sanguinetti’s shift from still photography to moving image was neither calculated nor forced, but rather a gradual unfolding that emerged naturally from her lifelong connection with her subjects. The director describes that her photographic practice had always focused on recording “the gradual shifts” in the moment,” a meditative approach that required patience and control. When video entered her working methods, it functioned not as a substitute but as a complementary medium—one that permitted her to document the spaces between her precisely constructed photographs. The camera became a constant companion in Guille and Belinda’s lives, a instrument able to passively record whilst Sanguinetti continued her concurrent practice with her still camera.
The aesthetic choices apparent in “The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer” reflect this two-fold approach. The film’s grainy texture and fixed composition create an personal, domestic-video quality that echoes the casual character of Sanguinetti’s original archive. Unlike filmed pieces that demands constant intervention and direction, her method allowed life to develop naturally before both cameras. This approach sets apart her work from other aesthetically comparable contemporary cinema, such as Alexandre Koberidze’s “Dry Leaf,” which employs comparable visual techniques for fundamentally distinct creative aims. For Sanguinetti, the pixelated scenes and tranquil farmland imagery serve as a visual record of authentic moments rather than fabricated stories.
- Photography requires control; video allows life to unfold naturally
- Dual cameras recorded varying dimensions of the identical instances
- Grainy texture reflects the intimate archive’s home-footage quality
- Organic method distinguished her work from constructed cinema narratives
The Pampas as Character: Terrain and Personal Connection
The Argentine Pampas serve as considerably more than mere backdrop in Sanguinetti’s debut feature; the landscape functions as a character in its own right, crafted and reinterpreted through the imaginations of Guille and Belinda. Over twenty-five years, the vast prairie becomes a space where the cousins construct unplanned, imaginary settlements—imaginary houses, castles and theatres that reside exclusively within their performances and games. This artistic reshaping of the rural environment demonstrates a distinctly childhood perspective, one in which the boundaries between reality and fantasy intertwine naturally. The peaceful countryside, captured through Sanguinetti’s pixelated scenes, bears witness to the girls’ genuine and whimsical vocal expressions, rhythmic movement and dramatic enactment that slowly transition to the responsibilities of adulthood.
The director’s extensive familiarity of this landscape, accumulated over decades of photographic documentation, allows her to capture the subtle shifts that mark the passage of time. The Pampas does not stay unchanged; rather, it evolves with Guille and Belinda as they develop, form romantic bonds and raise their own families. Sanguinetti’s rooted methodology acknowledges the environment’s understated beauty whilst recognising how intimate bonds and recollections become intertwined with geographical space. The farmland acts as both witness and accomplice to the life unfolding before the camera, anchoring the film’s dreamy quality in genuine rural experience rather than sentimentalised longing.
Animals as Equal Members
Lively pastoral creatures populate the backgrounds throughout “The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer,” serving as essential components of the rural ecosystem rather than simple ornamental additions. Cows, horses and other livestock pass across the frame with the same authentic character as the human subjects, establishing a sense of shared habitation and reciprocal dependence. The animals look on at Guille and Belinda’s performances, their relaxed activity and browsing behaviour offering paced opposition to the girls’ performative actions. This inclusion captures the true essence of agricultural life, where human activity and animal presence are necessarily entwined.
The presence of animals also extends to the girls’ imaginative games, wherein they recreate funeral ceremonies and simulate surgery on deceased animals. Rather than treating these moments as dark or unsettling, Sanguinetti documents them with the same detached objectivity she applies elsewhere, recognising them as ordinary components of country upbringing. The animals thus serve as teachers of mortality and consequence, grounding the children’s play in the tangible conditions of farm life. This unflinching portrayal sets apart Sanguinetti’s vision from more sterilised representations of youthful innocence.
Marking Significant Life Events
Sanguinetti’s directorial approach prioritises patience and presence over narrative construction. By maintaining her observational stance across a quarter-century, she documents the gradual shifts that characterise human existence—moments too nuanced for conventional filmmaking to perceive. The director’s photographic background proves instrumental here; her trained eye recognises the significance in seemingly mundane instances: a look shared between relatives, the alteration in stance as puberty begins, the quiet acceptance of the demands of adulthood. This methodology turns “The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer” into something beyond documentary creating instead a personal archive of temporal progression through close, immediate observation.
The film’s textured aesthetic strengthens this commitment to authenticity rather than visual refinement. Where other filmmakers might use grain as visual embellishment, Sanguinetti’s fragmented images emerge organically from years of accumulated footage, each frame carrying the time signatures of its creation. This visual vocabulary communicates truthfulness—the camera merely captures what takes place in front of it without artifice or staged intervention. Guille and Belinda’s lives stay essentially their own, with Sanguinetti serving as witness rather than architect. The result prioritises direct experience over storytelling, suggesting that the most profound cinema doesn’t come from imposing narrative upon reality, but from patient attendance to reality’s own unfolding rhythms.
- Twenty-five years of sustained documentation generates remarkable chronological breadth
- Gradual shifts are revealed only through sustained, patient observation
- Authenticity arises from refusing to impose narrative structure upon real life
The Director’s Presence and Absence
Sanguinetti’s relationship with her subjects transcends the conventional filmmaker-subject dynamic, evolving instead into something resembling a family-like connection. Over more than two decades, she became woven into the fabric of Guille and Belinda’s lives, sufficiently present to document their changes yet sufficiently removed to allow their experiences to develop naturally. This delicate balance—between witness and participant—defines the film’s emotional impact. The director describes her connection with the cousins as completely natural, rooted in genuine affection rather than creative purpose. She did not set out to make a project about two women growing up; rather, she simply knew them and wished to bear witness to their lives. This difference is crucial, as it frees the film from the burden of predetermined narrative or thematic agenda.
The camera itself operates as an manifestation of this layered relationship, operating both as barrier and bridge between filmmaker and subjects. By preserving her observational distance, Sanguinetti provides Guille and Belinda control of their own accounts, enabling them to perform, play and merely inhabit space without the self-consciousness that typically follows documentary scrutiny. Yet the camera’s ongoing visibility—a recognisable object in their surroundings—ensures that nothing remains completely removed or untouched by artistic intention. This tension produces the film’s unique resonance: we see lives lived both for and despite the camera’s gaze, producing a record that is owned by both filmmaker and filmed, neither party fully controlling the final image.
Discovering Your Voice Through Restraint
Sanguinetti’s artistic maturity manifests not in intricate visual design but in her inclination to withdraw, to trust that life itself holds sufficient drama and beauty. Her photographic practice—where she remains “always more in control and seeking something”—stands in marked contrast to her approach to video, where she consciously allows “life to flow” before the lens. This philosophical shift towards restraint marks her directorial perspective. Rather than imposing her vision upon Guille and Belinda’s experiences, Sanguinetti opens space for their stories to surface, free from editorial intervention. The film’s power derives from this reserve, from the director’s acknowledgement that sometimes the most significant artistic expressions arise through absence rather than presence, through silence rather than articulation.