Phoenix 24
In his new film, silence and seclusion become cinematic terrain, revealing how disconnection can haunt the soul.
Buenos Aires and San Sebastián, August 2025. Argentine filmmaker Luis Ortega returns to the prestigious San Sebastián International Film Festival with his latest work, the medium-length film Always Night (Siempre es de noche), selected for the competitive Zabaltegi Tabakalera section, a space renowned for embracing bold and experimental narrative forms. After his success with Kill the Jockey, this new project positions Ortega once again at the edge of cinematic daring.
Scheduled for its world premiere at the 73rd edition of the festival, running from September 19 to 27, Always Nightwill screen alongside a diverse lineup that includes works ranging from short films to full-length features, each competing for a €20,000 award, a rare spotlight on narrative innovation. Ortega’s return follows last year’s recognition, when Kill the Jockey won the Horizontes Latinos award at San Sebastián and also premiered at Venice earlier the same year.
In Always Night, Ortega explores isolation through two enigmatic characters: a young girl armed yet silent, and a poet with a mysterious physical affliction. Trapped in a house that seems to float beyond the outside world, their connection against a backdrop of darkness becomes both literal and metaphorical. When a knife grinder arrives, his fascination with the girl sparks a fragile bond, but also carries the risk of disrupting their delicate existence. The film resists conventional narrative arcs, leaning instead toward allegory and atmosphere, where silence becomes as important as dialogue.
Ortega is no stranger to stories of solitude and disquiet. His previous works, from El Ángel to Kill the Jockey, consistently exposed the tension between external facades and troubled interiors. In this new film, he turns inward again, suggesting that isolation is not always violence, but can also be a form of refuge. Yet in that refuge, danger remains present, shaping how intimacy and secrecy unfold.
The selection of Always Night in Zabaltegi Tabakalera underscores San Sebastián’s commitment to cinematic ventures that challenge both form and content. The section is known for spotlighting visions that defy genre boundaries. Ortega, now a seasoned auteur, positions himself as both inheritor and innovator, drawing from Argentine radicalism while securing a place on the global stage.
Critics may interpret the symbolic weight of the film as extending beyond its narrative. Coming from a country whose cinema has long engaged with memory, history, and trauma, Ortega’s new work taps into that lineage while narrowing its gaze to an intimate setting. The poet’s mysterious condition may echo Argentina’s struggle with the burden of the past, while the girl’s silence reflects a generational search for meaning amid inherited shadows.
His return to San Sebastián also signals broader recognition. Ortega’s cinema has matured from regional experimentation to international visibility. His narrative gestures, including long takes, visual metaphors, and minimal dialogue, grant a meditative power to the smallest gestures. Compared with Kill the Jockey, which was urban, kinetic, and darkly comedic, Always Night emerges as atmospheric and metaphysical, an inward journey rather than a pursuit of speed.
For Argentina’s film industry, Ortega’s presence on global stages confirms the dynamic interplay between local identity and international resonance. His work travels easily across borders without conceding its origins. Always Night is likely to deepen his reputation as a filmmaker who transcends categories, invoking silence, space, and the fragile human capacity to endure.
Ultimately, in Always Night, Luis Ortega dramatizes an existential truth: in isolation, we may discover more about ourselves than in connection. Yet solitude does not guarantee clarity. It may instead reveal emptiness, demanding that we confront what lies beyond speech and routine. As the lights dim in San Sebastián, Ortega reminds audiences that cinema, at its most daring, is not just a story but a way of inhabiting silence.
Every silence speaks.
Cada silencio habla.