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Acné follows Rafa (Alejandro Tocar), a 13-year old Jewish boy living in Montevideo, Uruguay. We witness his first sexual encounter and then follow him as he roams around town with his friends, deals with issues at home and at school and, ultimately, seeks his first real kiss.

First time feature film writer-director Federico Veiroj was present to introduce the film and then did a Q&A afterwards. He was here in 2004 with his short “As Follows“, and said that both it and Acné drew from a script that he had written back in 2000. He didn’t seem to mind informing us that Rafa’s colourful story was greatly influenced by his own, but did add later that the screenplay had been worked on so much during the past eight years that he can hardly see anything of himself in the character anymore.

This statement is a credit to young Alejandro Tocar, who, at 15 years old at the time of filming, had no acting experience. His performance is very natural and this boy certainly has talent; whether it is talent enough to play a range of characters, however, still needs to be seen (Michael Cera, anyone? I still love him, though…).

The film was shot on HD and in order to hide the format’s limitations, Veiroj made certain to include “as few shots of the sky as possible, as HD makes it look bad”. He shot a bulk of the film in an actual apartment but it was decorated especially for the film. The decor and lack of mobile phones and computers place this film intentionally in the mid-90’s. He said that he wanted to tell a story where the characters were not mingling with technology as often as, or more than, their friends and family.

Camera movements are few and far between; when it moves, it is very slow and deliberate. I love the handheld style but this made me feel more like an invisible observer than as being part of the action; this also went well with the relatively slow pacing and dialogue.

I liked the film. At only 87 minutes it still felt slightly long, so Veiroj may still have a way to go before being able to flesh out a feature length film. But it was a nice way to start this year’s festival experience, especially with its ample moments of humour and awkwardness. I love coming-of-age films, and Rafa was definitely a unique enough character to watch.

This was screening 1/26.