El proyeccionista is a nine-and-a-half minute short film from Costa Rica, directed by Nicole Villalobos. I stumbled upon this film by accident while trying to google information about 2019’s The Projectionist.
Rafael, a man roughly in his 30s, works as a projectionist in an “adult” cinema. Scars cover parts of his face, and he feels very self-conscious about that fact. He is rather shy and awkward around women, and the self-consciousness about his scars definitely plays into this. Other than that, we learn very little about him, apart from the fact that he is somewhat passionate about Poker.
This is one of those shorts that is nothing more than a slice-of-life glimpse of a character. Not even a character study, just a glimpse. The character is written interestingly, and the performance of Daniel Ulibarri in this role is very good, but there is just not much you can take away from this as an audience. Which means that, in a way, this short feels a bit like a demo-reel, but also a bit like a pitch. As if the character had been created in the hope of injecting him into a feature-length film at some point.
Ulibarri’s good performance is accompanied by Nerina Carmona’s equally good performance in the only other major role in this short. Ileana Verjus’s cinematography contributes to the short’s professional look.
Like some of Villalobos’s other works, El proyeccionista has been shown at the Costa Rica International Film Festival (CRFIC).
It is very hard to put a rating on a short like that. If you judge the result based on what Villalobos set out to achieve, you’ll have to rate it at least at 7 out of 10.
This short film can be found with English subtitles on the director’s Youtube channel.
Latin American Film Reviews 