Rasmus Slätis

In 1931, following the success of the film Battleship Potemkin, Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein travels to the city of Guanajuato, Mexico, to shoot a new film. Freshly rejected by Hollywood, Eisenstein soon falls under Mexico’s spell. Chaperoned by his guide Palomino Cañedo, the director opens up to his suppressed fears as he embraces a new world of sensual pleasures and possibilities that will shape the future of his art.

A story about an evening in a restaurant. Six tables, seven stories, a tragicomedy about the fantasies and realities of love.

From Moscow to Mexico City, Eisenstein was privileged enough to met the cultural heroes of the era and embrace them as compatriots, with a handshake. Such was his reputation as the wunderkind of the new art of cinema, everybody wanted to meet him; there were writers, painters, critics, theorists and philosophers, as well as composers, architects, and artists from all branches of the cultural life that was shaping minds and civilizations. Our project would follow Eisenstein's journey and note the significant characters he encountered on his travels, with a focus on Switzerland.

In a Chekovian setting, old friends – four women and three men – gather at a modest villa by the sea, near a cemetery and medieval ruins, to have a perfect day of drinking, eating and going to the sauna. All have something on their mind, and they do their damnest not to open up about it.