La Cantábrica is a factory that recently closed in a suburb of Buenos Aires, where four young friends meet regularly during the financial crisis of the 1990s. The sensitive debut is both universally recognisable and impenetrably mysterious, just like the lives of 12-year-olds all over the world can be.
They are 12 years old, the four friends from this sensitive debut film set in Buenos Aires in 1997. The enormous economic crisis facing Argentina at that time only plays a role in the background, because director Ezequiel Erriquez specifically chooses the perspective of his young protagonists.
We do, for instance, hear that the father of one of them is going abroad, looking for work. But Lola, Choco, Lija and Zota - like all 12-year-olds - are primarily interested in themselves and each other. Lola has her ballet lessons, Zota helps with the rehearsals for a play, performed by a group of blind actors. One day, the friends decide to go and play at La Cantábrica, a deserted factory that was recently shut.
The precise events of that fateful day are left unseen by the 26-year-old director, just as he also only shows fragments of everyday experiences. The film focuses on what the children experience, and after this day their lives will never be the same again.