Declared Dead by His Own Bank: A Kafkaesque Retirement Comedy
Variety reports that Berlin-based M-Appeal has boarded “When I Existed,” the feature debut of Uruguay’s Alejandro Damiani and Martin Avdolov, describing it as a feel-good second-chance drama comedy and a Kafkaesque social satire that stood out at the Cannes Market’s Ventana Sur Goes to Cannes showcase.
In the film’s story, Silvio Bertolini retires after 40 years spent building Uruguay’s foremost gates construction company. Trying to draw his pension, with his credit cards already frozen, he finds that the National Pension and Retirement Fund — also his bank — has him registered as deceased.
Four decades of building gates, and the obstacle that stops him is an entry in his own bank’s records: the satire sits in the premise rather than being bolted on.
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The cruellest part of that premise is the absence of anyone to argue with. A clerk can be worn down; a record that has you dead is a different kind of wall.
The genre label argues back, though: a film sold as a feel-good second-chance comedy is unlikely to leave its hero filed under deceased. The Kafka may be the middle of the story, not the ending.