Inwave Films has acquired worldwide sales rights to ‘The Days Off’, the debut feature by Argentine writer-director Lucila Mariani, before its world premiere in Locarno’s Filmmakers of the Present section. The deal gives the Paris- and Beijing-based sales company responsibility for taking the four-country co-production to international buyers, while bringing attention to a film that combines a child’s coming-of-age story with dreamlike science-fiction elements.

Set amid rising inflation, worsening power cuts and an approaching solar eclipse in Argentina, the film follows 12-year-old Bego as she turns to an online friend and the practice of “shifting” through lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis. Antonia Robolini leads the cast alongside Laura Paredes, Luiza Quinteiro and Guillermo Berthold; the film is produced by Argentina’s Maravillacine with partners in Brazil and Mexico. Mariani said it reflects how an earlier internet enabled young people, especially in the Global South, to find connection and identity beyond their surroundings.