Everybody Has a Plan

Todos tenemos un plan

Ana Piterbarg’s debut feature is an engrossing and distinctive modern noir that evolves amidst the unfamiliar, unsettling environment of Argentine swamplands.

Even if a screening is sold out, tickets are often available 30 minutes before the start of the film at the box office at each venue.


Image gallery

  • Director-Screenwriter Ana Piterbarg
  • Producer Mariela Besuievsky, Gerardo Herrero, Vanessa Ragone, Viggo Mortensen
  • With Viggo Mortensen, Soledad Villamil, Daniel Fanego
  • Argentina-Spain-Germany 2011
  • 117 mins
  • UK distribution Metrodome Distribution

Pedro is a beekeeper living deep in the Tigre, a backwater province of Buenos Aires that lies on the Paraná Delta. He is in poor health and, after being drawn into a kidnapping attempt, he has become wary of his associates. He escapes to the city to see his twin brother Agustín, who has made a success of himself as a doctor. Yet Agustín is facing crises of his own, and Pedro’s arrival presents an opportunity for him to escape his own circumstances. The choice Agustín makes leads him back to the Delta where he spent his youth, and to fateful confrontations. Ana Piterbarg’s debut feature is an engrossing and distinctive modern noir that evolves amidst the unfamiliar, unsettling environment of Argentine swamplands. Viggo Mortensen, playing the roles of the twin brothers, delivers electrifying performances, cementing his reputation as one of the most daring screen actors working today.
Michael Hayden

Director statement

Everybody Has a Plan tells the story of Agustín, a man who, having reached middle age, decides to leave everything he had built in his life behind, and embark on a desperate and unconscious quest for a second chance. Settling at the same old house in the Tigre he had known as a child provokes an inner journey and, at the same time that he strives to be another, Agustín searches for something pending since his childhood, something that has determined his future as an adult and that he can no longer bear. Everybody Has a Plan is a story about contradictions, about the two sides that live within us all, and about our need, so many times quieted, to find a way to merge them.
Ana Piterbarg

Director biography

Ana Piterbarg (1971) studied cinema at the ENERC (Experimental Center for Film Direction at the National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts). For several years, she worked as an assistant director in films and television, working for Martín Rejtman, Adrián Caetano and Fernando Spiner, among others. She directed fiction programs for Argentinean television (Campeones de la vida, Malandras) and also for Chilean television (Loco por ti, Los Galindo). She also directed documentary series for Canal de la Ciudad and Canal Encuentro. Her short feature No mires (Don’t Look) won the Best Fiction Award 2004 at the Women in Cinema Festival. In April, 2008, her screenplay Everybody Has a Plan won the Julio Alejandro Prize granted by the Author Foundation (SGAE) and the Buñuel Institute in Spain.

Ana Piterbarg filmography

2007 Mestizo, una historia del arte latinoamericano [Mestizo, a History of Art in Latin America] [doc series; TV]
2006 Glorias de mi ciudad [Delights of My City] [doc series; TV]
2005 Los Galindo [The Galindos] [TV series]
2004 Loco por ti [Crazy About You] [TV series]
2003 Malandras [TV series]
2002 No mires [Don’t Look] [s]
2000 Champions of Life [TV series]

As Assistant Director

2004 Goodbye, Dear Moon [Dir: Fernando Spiner]
2003 The Magic Gloves [Dir: Martín Rejtman]
1998 La expresión del deseo [An Expression of Desire] [Dir: Adrián Caetano]
1995 Cuesta abajo – Historias Breves I [Downhill – Brief Stories I] [Dir: Adrián Caetano]