“Paraguay is a country with many unanswered questions”: Marcelo Martinessi on Narciso at Berlin Film Festival 2026

Marcelo Martinessi is the director of Narciso, which won the Fipresci Award in the Panorama section at the Berlinale 2026 and explores a real-life, unsolved mystery. Based on Guido Rodriguez Alcala’s book, Martinessi revisits 1959 Paraguay, focusing on the social fabric supporting authoritarianism, rather than solely the dictator. “I feel that Paraguay is a country with many unanswered questions,” he stated, emphasising the film’s refusal to provide easy answers to Narciso’s death. Martinessi discussed the challenges of recreating a poorly documented era, using it as a “privilege” to creatively reconstruct the past. He highlighted the radio drama Dracula as a powerful metaphor and delved into themes of desire, repression, and the inheritance of societal “toxicity”.