WHITE ELEPHANT World Cinema

Pablo Trapero returns to AFI FEST following his pulsating neo-noir CARANCHO with an explosive vision of Argentina’s crumbling slums and the men who labor to sustain those struggling to survive in them. When an Amazon tribe is brutally slaughtered, Father Nicholas leaves the jungle and heads toward the slums of Buenos Aires and the abandoned monolith nicknamed the “White Elephant.” The unfinished tuberculosis hospital is now a hulking reminder that society has turned its back on this place where violent drug lords rule the day. Deep in the slums, Father Nicholas encounters another missionary priest, the grizzled but effective Father Julian who has a unique way of using the gangs for good. As police crackdowns continue, we experience from the inside what bone-crushing poverty does to a man determined to do right. Shocking and rigorously adherent to its internal morality, WHITE ELEPHANT is a sweaty, dirt-encrusted tale you will never forget.