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ZONA DE CONTACTO

By Estrella HERRERA

Female director - Development 2026

In Copahue, the Earth takes center stage. The volcano and its hot springs, sacred to indigenous peoples, attract tourists seeking healing. Ana, a photographer on a healing journey, undergoes her treatment while exploring and photographing an enigmatic landscape.

- Year of production
- 2026
- Genres
- Female director, First film, Documentary
- Countries
- ARGENTINA
- Languages
- SPANISH-ARGENTINE
- Duration
- 75 mn
- Director(s)
- Estrella HERRERA
- Synopsis
- Ana is in Copahue, Argentine Patagonia, on a healing journey. She suffers from a series of symptoms for which she has found no diagnosis: heartburn, a skin rash, and sleep problems keep her on high alert. At the foot of the volcano, the small thermal village where she spends her days is a mixture of open-air hospital and recreation area. Its Mapuche name, Copahue, means “sulfur water.”
  
  Copahue is enveloped in steam from the hot springs and a mysterious atmosphere. Newly arrived, Ana visits the resort's doctor, who prescribes a treatment and gives her the white robe that will be her second skin during her stay. Her first approach to the thermal complex is reticent and somewhat distrustful; she prefers individual baths to collective lagoons and clear pools to muddy ones.
  Between dives, facial masks, and therapeutic steam treatments, Ana visits the local museum. There, she looks through the old guest book and photo albums of former tourists who arrived on horseback and spent precarious stays in tents, skin to skin with the Earth in the intimacy of the end of the world. Among the documents, she finds a letter from the late 19th century in which someone reports the discovery of this place, describing it as “a moon-like region.” These materials seep into Ana's thoughts, feeding her imagination: from this moment on, at night, she begins to dream of an explorer from the past, a solitary figure wearing a hat, wandering through a depopulated and archaic territory.
  
  As the days pass and her treatment progresses, Ana slowly begins to venture into the wild territory that surrounds her.