cinematography
Balthazar Lab
editing
Olivia Neergaard-Holm
music
Lucy Railton
sound
Federico González Jordán
Nicolas Becker
Séverin Favrieu
Stéphane Thiébaut
production design
Nathan Parker

cast
Sam Louwyck (El Individuo)
Erwan Kepoa (Juan)

production
Kintsugi Cine
co-production
Farol
producers
Paulina Valencia
Matt Porterfield
co-producers
Christian Évora
Marco Tulio Pires

world sales
The Pool Films
sales@thepoolfilms.com

In an unnamed city, a beauty salon becomes a space of passage where those cast out gather, suspended between life and death. At its center is the Individuo, a solitary presence who tends to this place without any promises or explanation. The film unfolds as time and place dissolve into one another. What is lived, remembered, and imagined coexists in a continuous movement, where meaning emerges through ritual, drifting, and return. Within this space, beauty and death are intertwined. The salon becomes a threshold where presence and memory fade and reappear, and where the boundaries between reality and vision begin to loosen. The outside world remains  fractured, its tensions quietly permeating the space. As everything shifts, what emerges is a passage: a meditation on the fragility of existence.

2026 Salón de Belleza

“I have always been drawn to the profound and unsettling connection between beauty and death, and to the way that, through the passage of time, beauty can transform death and give meaning to what remains. Adapting Salón de Belleza by Mario Bellatin was never about illustrating a story, but about creating a sensorial space, one that uses aquatic life as a recurring metaphor of immense beauty and permanent misfortunes. The novel invites the reader to create their own narrative. In the same way, I hope the film invites the viewer to form their own interpretations and reflections on death, as well as on those moments that are filled with life. There are two themes in the novel that resonate deeply with me. The first is the fleeting nature of existence: why we are here and why we must die. What is the soul, and why do I exist in this particular body, in this specific place and time? The second is the divisions of a society and humanity in crisis, where ideological confrontations create constant inequalities and conflicts. Fear, rejection, and judgment of others limit and divide us. Salón de Belleza does not seek to impose meaning, but rather to create a space where presence and memory fade and then return, where life and death coexist, and where, perhaps, we are invited to linger, for a moment, within that passage.” (Nathalia Acevedo)

Nathalia Acevedo is a Mexican actress and filmmaker. Her screen credits include Post Tenebras Lux (2012), directed by Carlos Reygadas (Best Director Award at Cannes); Ruined Heart, directed by Filipino filmmaker Khavn de la Cruz, alongside Tadanobu Asano with cinematography by Christopher Doyle; and The Trouble with Nature, directed by Danish filmmaker Illum Jacobi, opposite Antony Langdon. Her films have screened at numerous international film festivals. She has long been interested in social, political, and theological questions, which shape her perspective as a filmmaker. Her feature directorial debut, Salón de Belleza, is adapted from Mario Bellatin's acclaimed novel.