THE MOLE AGENT

EL AGENTE TOPO

By Maite ALBERDI

ORANGE ENTERTAINMENT - as BUYER REP

Crime - Completed 2020

Rómulo is a private investigator hired to study an elderly retirement home where residents might be victims of abuse. He trains Oscar (82) to infiltrate the retirement home as a “mole.” Once inside, Oscar struggles to assume his detective role, as he gradually becomes one more resident in the home.

Festivals
& Awards

Tribeca FF 2017
Latin American Documentary Fund
IDFA 2017
Development Fund
Toulouse (ARCALT) 2017
Cine en Construccion French Kiss Studio Award
Sundance Film Festival 2020
World Cinema Documentary Competition
Busan IFF 2020
Wide Angle
San sebatian 2020
Perlak Section - The City of Donostia / San Sebastian Audience Award
    • Year of production
    • 2020
    • Genres
    • Crime, Documentary
    • Countries
    • CHILE, USA, GERMANY, NETHERLANDS, SPAIN
    • Languages
    • SPANISH
    • Budget
    • 0.3 - 0.6 M$
    • Duration
    • 84 mn
    • Director(s)
    • Maite ALBERDI
    • Writer(s)
    • Maite ALBERDI
    • Producer(s)
    • Marcela SANTIBAÑEZ (Micromundo), Maite ALBERDI (Micromundo)
    • Synopsis
    • Rómulo is a private investigator hired to study an elderly retirement home where residents might be victims of abuse. He hires Oscar, an 82-year-old “mole” agent, and trains him to become a spy.
      Inside the asylum, Oscar records what at first seems like irregular behavior. But his camera is always late to capture the evidence, which does not yield any concrete material other than normal life on the premises. As days go by, Oscar comes to understand the residents’ loneliness, and he identifies with it. He thinks his family forgot about him, and starts to feel just like the other retirees - which leads him to gradually forget his main goal: to be a detective.
      Inspired by the absurd comedic humor of crime novels and unusual approaches in identifying alleged illicit behavior, The Mole Agent is a comical anthropological investigation that leads us to the question of exclusion of the elderly from daily life, exploring deep-rooted social behavior in regards to the way of life of senior citizens in Latin America.