Amalia Ulman (“El Planeta”) became an online star more than ten years ago: in 2014 she posted “her” story, namely that of an IT girl who tries his luck in Los Angeles. It was only months later that she dissolved that the whole “Hot Babe” story was a fake. Some of the pictures, such as Ulman with a pole dance rod or Ulman on diet, were real, others, such as the image of a breast surgery. The performance of our self -expression on the Internet made so high waves that Ulman was able to issue her “Excellences & Perfections” project in the Tate Modern in London. In 2018 she also published her book of the same name about the Insta-Fake.
Seven years later, Ulman is back with Latin American Vibes and a brightly colored farce over the media world, which celebrated her world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. The script and director of “Magic Farm“Ulman took over again. Despite a short term of 93 minutes, the thin culture clash story is hardly sufficient to keep us despite some twists (which unfortunately cannot be kept out of this criticism, i.e. read more at our own risk) to the credits) .
Moderator Edna (Chloë Sevigny) is only minimally less planned than the rest of the crew.
In “Magic Farm”, a media crew from New York reports about subcultures and wild trends all over the world – VICE greetings. In Argentina, for example, they are targeting the Super Carlitos singer, who went viral with rabbits. The crew travels to San Cristobal, a sleepy village in which more animals live than humans and where you climb the tree for good internet. Because her contact person (Abuela Marita) is unobtrusive, the guests are strolling through the village and finding out so soon that her producer Jeff (Alex Wolff) has apparently made a mistake.
The famous rabbit ear musician lives in San Cristóbal, but a San Cristóbal is available in almost every Spanish-speaking country in the world! In any case, they are wrong in Argentina. Instead of admitting the error, the crew decides to simply invent another internet hit. Everyone is so busy putting together a team for the fake report that a huge scandal that takes place directly under their nose is escaping them. Even if the Mateo (Mateo Vaquer) and Manchi (Camila del Campo) suffering from prematurely exhaustion run through the picture with a huge fire paint on the left cheek, the unsuspecting crew does not ask any questions. They also overlook other signs.
A pop look for pop journalism
With the culture clash comedy, the native Argentine Amalia Ulman returns to her home country. In doing so, she exposes self -centered media teams who travel around the world and, like Jeff, call themselves Globetrotter, but do not speak the language of the country about which they report. This leads to embarrassing misunderstandings. In addition, the team doesn't even know that Argentina belongs to the continent of America! This is just one of the amusing-stupid punchlines that Ulman incorporates.
In the middle of it is the project manager and moderator Edna (Chloë Sevigny), who can only endure the lack of planning of her employees with a dust -dry humor. Edas husband Dave (Simon Rex) pays the production, which also fully slips financially-not least because camera raw Elena (Amalia Ulman) has to fight for every receipt as a part-time accountant. In addition, she also has to serve as a Spanish translator. The most likeable is Soundmann Justin (Joe Apollonio), a Sunnyboy with Bon-Jovi mat and Adonis figure. It is the naive type next door that can be cut through the ear when buying SIM cards.
The crew overlooks all the signs of a possible large scandal!
You also treat him to a shy love story with a local. These are the most beautiful, because the most unobtrusive moments. Otherwise, “Magic Farm” rely on trendy colors. You can tell how much Ulman has internalized the common Instagram aesthetics. Meregue music often plays in the background. Animals can often be seen in the external shots, cameraman Carlos Rigo uses dog cams or fisheye look in order to lead to the next person or scene.
The crew lung around in the hotel, organizes a casting or depends on the locals. At some point one of them will give a feminist speech. Women sometimes just want sex, not love. The speech does not fit stylistically into the picture as the moral ins acid truth fist, which, if not surprisingly, hits your face through a media report. The New York journalist team remains blind until the end.
Conclusion: “Magic Farm” is completely half -baked. After an hour and a half you will feel as if you had scroll through social media: it was funny, sometimes boring, but afterwards nobody can really explain why you have spent so much time with it. But the animals were cute.
We saw “Magic Farm” as part of the Berlinale 2025, where it is shown in the Panorama section.