Silver Nitrate

In 1990s Mexico City, in a film industry in transition, two long-time friends are caught up in searching for whatever magic the movies might still have left—and trying to make a living. Montserrat is a brilliant but underappreciated sound editor, excluded from the behind-the-scenes boys’ club, an expert in classic film technique, and a horror aficionado. Tristán is a disgraced actor, blamed for the death of a well-connected actress in a drug-fueled car crash, who finds himself desperately looking for work as the tenth anniversary of the accident approaches. Enter cult director Abel Urueta, who lives in Tristán’s new building and strikes up a bargain with the two. The end of Urueta’s career, and all his bad luck since, he insists, was the result of his uncompleted last film, Beyond the Yellow Door. Urueta spins them a tale of working with a Nazi occultist who believed he had a way to infuse magic into the unstable silver nitrate film stock used at the time. With both film and spell left incomplete, Urueta claims he and the others involved in the production were cursed. And the filmmaker believes if the three of them finish the project now, all their fortunes will change for the better. Montserrat and Tristán reluctantly agree, and descend into a world of dark knowledge and darker secrets…

In 1990s Mexico City, in a film industry in transition, two long-time friends are caught up in searching for whatever magic the movies might still have left—and trying to make a living. Montserrat is a brilliant but underappreciated sound editor, excluded from the behind-the-scenes boys’ club, an expert in classic film technique, and a horror aficionado. Tristán is a disgraced actor, blamed for the death of a well-connected actress in a drug-fueled car crash, who finds himself desperately looking for work as the tenth anniversary of the accident approaches. Enter cult director Abel Urueta, who lives in Tristán’s new building and strikes up a bargain with the two. The end of Urueta’s career, and all his bad luck since, he insists, was the result of his uncompleted last film, Beyond the Yellow Door. Urueta spins them a tale of working with a Nazi occultist who believed he had a way to infuse magic into the unstable silver nitrate film stock used at the time. With both film and spell left incomplete, Urueta claims he and the others involved in the production were cursed. And the filmmaker believes if the three of them finish the project now, all their fortunes will change for the better. Montserrat and Tristán reluctantly agree, and descend into a world of dark knowledge and darker secrets…

Montserrat has always been overlooked. She's a talented sound editor, but she's left out of the boys' club running the film industry in '90s Mexico City. And she's all but invisible to her best friend Trist?n, a charming if faded soap opera star, even though she's been in love with him since childhood. Then Trist?n discovers his new neighbour is the cult horror director Abel Urueta, and the legendary auteur claims he has a way to change their lives - even if his tales of a Nazi occultist imbuing magic into highly volatile silver nitrate stock sounds like sheer fantasy. The magic film was never finished, which is why, Urueta swears, his career vanished overnight. He is cursed. Now the director wants Montserrat and Trist?n to help him shoot the missing scene and lift the curse . . . but Montserrat soon notices a dark presence following her. As they work together to unravel the mystery of the film and the obscure occultist who once roamed their city, Montserrat and Trist?n might just find out that sorcerers and magic are not only the stuff of movies . . .

A talented sound editor, overlooked in her field, discovers that the new neighbour of her soap opera star best friend is a horror director she’s long admired. After meeting, they learn of his mysterious last movie which went unfinished – and how all of their dreams can come true if they help him finish it. However, can they dodge the curse that has long plagued him and the film reel, placed by the occultist who imbued the film stock with a dark magic?