A Year Without Love

The year is 1996. To the HIV-positive, gay writer Pablo Perez, this is a year without love. His diary describes his yearning for love and fear of dying. He does not write just because he wants to, but because he has to, since he is soon about to die.

Almost a decade later, the thirty-two year-old director Anahí Berneri has made a powerful and personal film from a screenplay she adapted from the diary together with Perez himself. It a quiet and observing, yet challenging film language, we follow Pablo from hospital to hospital and through his casual sexual encounters in the Buenos Aires leather gay community. Berneri’s film neither scandalises nor moralises over the protagonist’s behaviour, nor does it portray him as a pitiful, dying martyr. The film is a non-judgemental depiction of how Perez is using his preferences for S/M and leather to channel his pain and fear of dying. Its form and editing rythm are immediate and pulsating, almost like Perez’ own heartbeat. FFS 2005

Anahí Berneri (b. 1975) is an Argentinian filmmaker. She graduated from the National Audiovisual Institute in Paris and debuted with a short documentary Modelo para armar (1997). Her five features have reaped numerous awards on the festival circuit. She teaches at Argentine’s national film school in Buenos Aires and also works as a theatre director.