Directed by Joaquín Cambre
From the director of CUERO (Drumskin) — Official Selection, Tallinn Black Nights 2026
On a rainy night, a psychiatry student is trapped in a laundromat with a homeless man who hates doctors and an old woman who hates the homeless.
Synopsis
A rainy night in Buenos Aires. Mirta is closing her old laundromat when Jazmín, a psychiatry resident new to the city, comes back for the keys she left in a pair of jeans. Mirta lets her in: the girl looks like the daughter who stopped calling a year ago. In the bathroom, Jazmín finds an album where Mirta has erased her daughter, photo by photo.
Then Marco Antonio arrives, a homeless Bolivian immigrant who needs to wash his clothes. Mirta doesn’t want to let him in because of how he looks, but Jazmín talks her into it. Inside, he strips to wash the only clothes he has, and signs of his state of mind begin to surface.
The air grows tense. Mirta mistreats him, and it unleashes years of discrimination and abuse: he locks Mirta in the basement. His words grow more and more delirious. Jazmín tries to calm him without revealing she is a doctor. When he finds out, he ties her up too. From the basement, Mirta waits for her moment to strike. And the machines start moving on their own.
The laundromat becomes a battlefield of revenge where each of them reveals their deepest prejudices. On the edge of death, they will have to use every tool they have to survive. Five wash cycles until dawn.
Characters
25. A psychiatry student. Tonight she can’t say what she is, and starts doubting what she sees.
70. Erased her daughter, photo by photo. She talks to her machines, and they seem to obey.
50. His son died in a hospital waiting room and no one treated him. He hates doctors. Tonight he snaps.
Fear and ignorance drive a story that grows more uncomfortable, and more terrifying, by the minute.
Five wash cycles until dawn. Every time a machine stops, something breaks.
Fantastical touches give the laundromat a terrifying character that mirrors its owner’s state of mind: washers that move on their own mid-spin, lights that flicker when she gets angry, as if the place answered to her mind.
Joaquín Cambre
Writer and director. His thriller Cuero premieres in the Official Selection of Tallinn Black Nights 2026 and screens at the Cairo International Film Festival. His debut, Un viaje a la Luna, won Best First Film and Best Score at Mar del Plata 2017. He directed the series Días de Gallos (HBO Max) and Selenkay (Disney+), and music videos for Gustavo Cerati, John Legend, Alejandro Sanz, Becky G and Calle 13, with over 16 billion views.
and a European co-producer