One of Latin America’s foremost experimental theater artists, Argentine writer-director Mariano Pensotti makes his Chicago debut with his boldly innovative “filmic drama” in which art and life unfold simultaneously—and the distinction between them blurs.

On a two-level stage, four film crews meet, argue, and shoot four different films in Buenos Aires, seemingly oblivious to one another, while the filmmakers’ own stories unfold on the second level. Pensotti directs five actors in all the roles and conceived the color-saturated stage as two floors—like the split screen of a film. By ingeniously adapting cinematic techniques—flashback, montage, cross-cuts, voice-over—he tells compelling stories about intertwined strangers’ love, loss, joy, and despair. Is life informing art? Or is it the other way around? In Cineastas, it becomes tantalizingly unclear where imagination ends and reality begins.

With Cineastas, which premiered in Berlin last year, Pensotti makes his Chicago debut.

The performance is in Spanish with English subtitles.

Running time: 105 minutes

Thursdays Thu, Feb 26 - Sunday Sun, March 1st