Chela and Chiquita are a long-term couple. Extroverted Chiquita is responsible for managing their life together; Chela on the other hand is reluctant to leave the house. When Chiquita is sent to prison for debt, Chela is suddenly left on her own and discovers a sense of self, independence and desire providing a taxi service for some new-found friends. Exploring the outside world as tentatively and carefully as its heroine, director Marcelo Martinessi increasingly trains the film’s gaze on a social strata that is strangely cut-off from reality and the conditions endured by many others in the country. Deftly performed, it’s a film that manages to be moving, intimate and socially resonant.
Our review of The Heiresses can be heard below in the August Film Podcast…