Horizons / Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo) / USA 2025
Welcome to the Bronx, where people speak loudly and grow up faster than you can say “responsibility.” Mad Bills to Pay, one of the most distinctive films of this year's Sundance and Berlinale’s new Perspectives section, is an energetic mix of humor, melancholy, and social empathy. When fate brings two teenagers together and places them before a crossroads in life, they find that selling Nutties on the beach and immediately spending all your earnings with your friends is hardly a long-term plan. A love letter to the Bronx’s Latino community, the film is a story about the fleeting nature of childhood, the first clashes with reality, and the fact that growing up hurts… even if we laugh at the same time.
Petra Vočadlová
100 min / Color, DCP
Director Joel Alfonso Vargas
/ Screenplay Joel Alfonso Vargas
/ Dir. of Photography Rufai Ajala
/ Music Niklas Sandahl
/ Sound Alina Ushakova, Omar Gabriel Delnevo
/ Editor Irfan Van Tuijl, Joel Alfonso Vargas
/ Art Director Lia Chiarin
/ Producer Paolo Maria Pedullà
/ Production Perpetuum Films
/ Coproduction Killer Films, Watermark Media, Spark Features
/ Cast Juan Collado, Destiny Checo, Yohanna Florentino, Nathaly Navarro
/ Sales Cinetic Media
Joel Alfonso Vargas. Selected filmography: Glass, Sand and Steel (2013, short), Swarm: An Anti-Odyssey (2015, short), Target Is Hiring (2020, short), Daddy’s Girl (2022, short), Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo) (2025).
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