Berlinale 2026: Exclusive THE RIVER TRAIN Poster Premiere

Argentine filmmakers Lorenzo Ferro and Lucas A. Vignale will present their debut feature The River Train (El Tren Fluvial) in the Perspectives section of the 2026 Berlinale Film Festival, marking the arrival of a quietly radical coming-of-age film shaped by solitude, movement, and cinematic memory.

Shot in Argentina, The River Train unfolds between countryside and city, observation and dream, grounding its emotional core in the gaze of a child. The film follows nine-year-old Milo, a boy growing up in a remote village where he trains as a malambo dancer. While rooted in his environment, Milo harbors a persistent longing for elsewhere, specifically for trains, and for Buenos Aires, a city he knows only through cinema. When he finally sets out on a journey toward that imagined world, what awaits him is not freedom but an initiation into solitude.

The film’s strength lies in its refusal of conventional narrative propulsion. Instead, Ferro and Vignale work with duration, repetition, and physical presence, allowing time itself to become expressive. The 4:3 frame and restrained camera movement emphasize Milo’s bodily relationship to space, whether traversing pampas landscapes or navigating the city’s indifferent rhythms. Trains, both literal and symbolic, function as fragile bridges between places, generations, and vanished infrastructures.

Milo is played by non-professional actor Milo Barría, whose unguarded presence anchors the film. He is joined by a cast that includes Rita Pauls, Fabián Casas, and members of Barría’s real-life family, further blurring the boundary between fiction and reality. The film was shot largely with natural light by cinematographer Thomas Grinberg, reinforcing its tactile, quasi-documentary texture.

Formally and thematically, the film openly converses with the legacy of Argentine cinema, most notably the work of Leonardo Favio, while also aligning itself with a broader tradition of slow, contemplative filmmaking.

Official synopsis:

Nine-year-old Milo is growing up with the pressure to become a great Malambo dancer and the “perfect” son. He dreams of taking control of his life and escaping his responsibilities of washing dishes, cooking and practicing the Malambo at night. Milo wants another life. He fantasises about travelling by train and exploring the city of Buenos Aires, which he has seen so many times in the movies and on television. However, in order to break free from his family and the countryside, and make his big dreams come true, he must dare to take a new journey: a journey into solitude, and the unknown adventures and pleasures of the big city.