No Kids

No Kids is a heartwarming film about managing family relations. Diego Peretti is Gabriel, a divorced guy who works in an instrument store and has a nine-year-old daughter. In many ways, he has become “just” a dad, and lost his other interests. He uses every opportunity he gets to show pictures and talk about his beautiful daughter. He has more or less given up finding a new life partner, but everything changes when he meets the widely traveled, sparkling and beautiful Vicky (Maribel Verdú, known from Pan's Labyrinth). There is only one problem: she cannot stand children. Shortly after, Gabriel compromises on his role as a loving father in an attempt to hide the fact that he has a kid for Vicky.

Ariel Winograd has in his relatively short directorial career been working on music videos, and his interest for music seems obvious in No Kids. The performance from father and daughter at the end of the film is no poorer than neither Hugh Grant and Nicholas Hoult's performance of Roberta Flack's Killing Me Softly With His Song in About a Boy, or Liam Neeson and Thomas Brodie Sangster's perpetual carol rehearsal in Love Actually. Protagonist Peretti was last seen in Lucía Puenzo's Wakolda, about Josef Mengele, at the Films from the South Festival in 2013. With No Kids he shows that he has as much talent for comedy as for serious dramas. Argentina has produced several enjoyable family comedies in recent years, and No Kids undoubtedly joins the list.

Ariel Winograd (b. 1977) studied at the University of Film in Buenos Aires. He has his background in TV, commercials, short films and music videos. In addition, he worked on Spike Lee's Inside Man in 2006. In 2011 he directed My First Wedding, starring the Argentinian star Natalia Oreiro and Daniel Hendler. The film became a great commercial success in the country.