A misguided American documentary crew working for an edgy media company travels to rural Argentina to profile a local musician, but their ineptitude leads them into the wrong small town. As they collaborate with locals to attempt to fabricate a viral trend, unexpected connections blossom, while a pervasive crisis looms unacknowledged in the background.

Amalia Ulman’s Sordid Scandal exists both as a video work and as a live performance that mixes fiction, a confessional style, academic or scientific language and historical anecdotes. Structured as a powerpoint presentation, in which Ulman narrates the process of shooting her film El Planeta, the video grasps the repercussions of the fictional on the real. Its script weaves, in a comedic style, dark personal memories with the technicalities of filming in a small town, restraining grants systems, globalist deceptions and the story of a criminal mother-daughter duo from Gijón.

A selfie-stick odyssey to a Chinese trade capital evokes the shapeshifting moods of travel.

Amidst the devastation of post-crisis Spain, mother and daughter bluff and grift to keep up the lifestyle they think they deserve, bonding over common tragedy and an impending eviction.