Lucia at the Window
Date:
December 28, 2024
Lucia at the Window
Lucia at the Window
by Agustin Balbi Gotusso and Julián Lona
Manto Films | Spain, Germany
Psychological Horror
Logline
Harassed by the noise of the neighboring bar, LUCÍA (80) hires ESTEBAN (35), an immigrant caregiver whose weaknesses seal an alliance of possession and revenge in the pursuit of silence.
Synopsis
LUCIA (80), a retired nurse and widow, lives alone in a first-floor apartment in the center of Madrid, where she spends her days resting and preparing her homemade kombucha. However, her tranquility is threatened by “La Redonda,” a new football-themed bar whose noisy terrace is always at the limit of legality. Every night, Lucía watches the bar’s clientele obsessively from her window; at times, they notice her and mock her. Tired of the situation, Lucía hires ESTEBAN (35) – a South American caregiver in need of work and with a low tolerance for frustration – under the pretext of her fragile health. But behind the hire lies a sinister purpose.
What begins as a dreamlike cohabitation turns into a subtle process of possession. Esteban becomes the executor of his patient’s desires, first sent to murder a loud HOOLIGAN (40) customer of the bar and finally the OWNER (42), all to achieve her longed-for silence.
Author’s Note
The project was born from spending many nights in a typical Madrid bar, always watching Conchita, a neighbour who lives on the first floor of the building opposite, from the terrace. She was always sitting by her window, looking unfriendly, monitoring the comings and goings of the bar with stubborn dedication.
Our fascination with this character gave rise to “Lucia at the Window”, in which we use psychological horror to address current issues that interest us, such as gentrification, the labour exploitation of migrants, and emotional vampirism in geriatric care.
Through the relationship between Lucia and Esteban, the film explores dynamics of power and manipulation inherent in a context of inequality. Meanwhile, the tension with the bar and its owner represents the helplessness of residents against the irreversible advance of commercial interests over their neighbourhoods.
The project seeks to move from the everyday to the unsettling, gradually transforming a tone closer to social cinema into a realm where the emergence of genre escalates into scenes of tension and unleashed violence. The goal is to invite the viewer to reflect on these realities not from a moralizing stance, but by delving into the ambiguous contradictions of the characters.
Company Profile
Manto Films is a film production company founded in Madrid (2021) by displaced Argentine filmmakers Agustín Balbi Gotusso, Julián Lona and Gonzalo Borrás. Uniting our respective backgrounds in theatre, dramaturgy, filmmaking and acting, we formed a creative bridge between Spain and Latin America to foster strategic co-productions while developing our auteur-driven projects.
We craft intimate, character-driven narratives with distinctive visual atmospheres, spanning genres from psych horror to social drama. In addition to our own slate, we collaborate with filmmakers, co-producing projects such as the short “Sírvase Frío” and the feature “Cometiendo Aciertos”, as well as numerous music videos for global artists and brands.
Our shorts, “El Canto del Cisne” (2022) and “La Próxima Vez” (2023), successfully navigated prestigious international circuits, with selections at Oscar-qualifying festivals like In the Palace (Bulgaria), and garnered multiple awards, both currently in platforms as Filmin and DIVERGENTE. Beyond fiction, we produced the documentary “El Abstracto de la Música” (2024), capturing the global tour of the iconic Argentine band Babasónicos.
We are currently in development and financing stages for two key projects: a social horror short “Lucia at the Window”, winner of the prize at Filmer Forge and an official 25/26 MIDPOINT Institute selection, and our debut feature film “Fading Existence”, directed by Julián from a script co-written with Agustín, marking our expansion into long-form narrative.