La Soledad

La Soledad is a dilapidated, seemingly abandoned villa in what used to be one of the wealthiest neighborhoods of Caracas, Venezuela. It used to be the home of director Jorge Thielen Armand s great-grandparents, but when the owners passed away fifteen years ago, the property was unofficially inherited by their lifelong maid, Rosina, now 72, who remained to care for the house and raise her grandson, José, now 27, Jorge’s childhood friend. Inside, antique portraits of the original homeowners still hang crookedly on crumbling walls, vegetation invades the structure of the house from all angles, and spirits eerily wander the hallways on quiet afternoons… Yet for José and his family, La Soledad isa safe-heaven in a city plagued with crime and political chaos, a quiet oasis that they are now forced to leave because the legal inheritors have decided to sell the estate. Struggling to find a solution to save his family from homelessness in a broken country, José learns of a dark secret, a desperate answer to his plight: a cursed treasure rumored to be buried in the walls of the house.The film is set in the beautiful, decaying mansion, and the characters are its real inhabitants. Capturing José’s real-life hardships through a magic realist lens,La Soledad gives an unprecedented look at the economic catastrophe of contemporary Venezuela.