The Peddler

Daniel Burmeister is a film director with over 50 credits to his name. He has no formal training, no crew and a tendency to remake the same 4 or 5 scripts over and over again. And yet, he may be an artistic visionary. Burmeister's singular technique is to turn up in a small Argentinian town and announce that he's going to make a film - all he asks is food, lodging and volunteers to star in his latest opus. And so the townsfolk of Benjamín Gould (yep, that's a real place) turn out to help, playing brides and grooms, priests and firemen, con men and corpses. The result may be no masterpiece, but the quality is irrelevant: like some kind of handycam-wielding Pied Piper in reverse, Burmeister's true contribution is social cohesion, as the villagers work together to create something memorable. 'The Peddler' is a beautiful film, following Burmesiter as he preps, shoots, edits and screens his film for a delighted, invested audience: a genuinely positive experience.