Despite her father's objections, Paulina starts work at a school in a remote village on the Argentinean border between Paraguay and Brazil. She is happy with the idea that she is putting true education into practice for these children. But then she is attacked by a group of gangsters and raped. Ignoring her emotional and physical trauma, she goes back to the school, but subsequent consequence of the crime forces her to make another huge decision. A remake of 1960s Argentinean classic La patota, Paulina was directed by Santiago Mitre, who began his film career as a writer. Mitre’s film avoids cranking up the dramatic tension of the crime itself through the use of frequent flashbacks, and elects instead to detail Paulina’s inner and external changes, shifting viewer focus onto other important issues like the legal inequalities the people at the margins, and the gap between reality and intellectual idealism. Paulina won the Grand Prix at Cannes’ Critics’ Week this year. (Jin Park)