SECRET WEDDING, which won the Golden Calf Prize at last year's Dutch Film Awards, confirms Agresti as one of the emerging talents of Argentinian cinema. Based in Holland, but returning to Argentina to film, Agresti addresses through a compelling narrative, the subject of the "desaparacidos" — the thousands of Argentinians who disappeared during the years of the military junta

The film, set in present-day Argentina, begins with a man running naked through the streets of Buenos Aires He is picked up by the police who discover that he's suffering from amnesia His fingerprints belong to Fermm Garcia, a union agitator believed to have been arrested and executed some thirteen years previous

The resurrected and still disoriented Fermim retraces his "missing" life back to a townlet in the north country where his lover, Tota, has been waiting for him all this time Tota, however can't seem to recognise him and Fermin, under an assumed name, determines to stay on in the village, working as a piano player in a local restaurant Meanwhile, the small-minded authorities and insidiously influential church start to move in on this politically suspect stranger.

The ensuing corruption, madness and murder are etched by Agresti with an almost surreal calm, creating an atmosphere at once funny, touching and suspenseful. - (PKe)