两位女性制片人接到委托，要为一场展览拍摄一部纪录短片。展览聚焦阿根廷先锋艺术界充满谜团的人物鲁本・桑坦托宁 —— 他于 20 世纪 60 年代末英年早逝。然而委托方提出一个出人意料的条件：这部影像作品必须与大卫・拉梅拉斯联合创作。拉梅拉斯曾是桑坦托宁的合作者，如今已是享誉国际的观念艺术家。 起初，计划清晰、范畴有限：拉梅拉斯带领一支年轻摄制组搜集档案素材、记录为数不多留存下来的作品，并采访策展人与重量级艺术家，包括路易斯・费利佩・诺埃、玛尔塔・米努欣。当年，正是他们与桑坦托宁、拉梅拉斯一同构筑了传奇的托库阿托・迪泰拉艺术学院艺术图景。 随着调查推进，拉梅拉斯渐渐意识到，重构友人的一生，势必要直面大量史料空白与相互矛盾的证词。这份来自机构的委托逐渐转向另一种形态：一场向内的探寻，追问艺术创作的意义，以及我们能否（或无法）依靠叙事去完整诠释一个人的一生。 影片抛出核心命题：倘若一名艺术家主动选择抹去自身所有痕迹，如今我们试图复原这一切，究竟意味着什么？是努力照亮一段被遗忘的历史，抑或是无可避免地创造一段全新的故事？

Films about confinement during the pandemic may have gone viral, but La edad media is a species of a whole other kind. Lucid and ludic, terribly funny but also deeply serious at the same time, this film co-directed by dancer and choreographer Luciana Acuña and filmmaker Alejo Moguillansky has a wise, privileged narrator: their ten-year-old daughter Cleo. Through her eyes, the film deals with far more issues than mere Covid routines, such as online lessons and virtual shopping, the latter of which turns awfully weird here. Rampant inflation, cultural policy and market value are on the menu of La edad media, which expands upon the question raised by Moguillansky in his previous film Por el dinero (2019): is it possible for artists to pay the bills with their work? And if so, at what cost? The cinematic use of the restricted space of the family home is masterful in all its possibilities, which Acuña and Moguillansky embrace with a crazy, slapstick spirit augmented with Samuel Beckett’s Theatre of the Absurd. And a special mention goes to Juana, the family dog: Aki Kaurismäki would surely love to cast her in his next film.