📆 Opens in select theaters on Friday, March 1st and a wide-release on Monday, March 22nd
🎥 Specific theater locations TBA
Julio Torres is the damnedest person. The El Salvador-born writer/comedian is known for being… outré. His canceled-too-soon HBO comedy Los Espookys, which he co-created with costars Ana Fabrega and Fred Armisen, was an out-of-left-field, kindhearted joy about a troupe of horror-loving goofballs spreading their weird love and practical effects around a nameless Latin American country. (Torres played the deadpan heir to a chocolate fortune and commiserated with a physical manifestation of the moon.) His 2019 HBO comedy special My Favorite Shapes, was, well, also the damnedest thing. Not even the mainstream factory that is Saturday Night Live could curtail his absurd impulses in sketches like “Wells for Boys” and “Cheques.” He’s also the damnedest thing in other people’s work, like the Patti Harrison comedy Together Together and as the voice of Crispin on The Great North.
The obvious next step is writing, directing, and starring in his debut feature film. Behold Problemista. In it, Torres tells a surreal, very, very loose version of his immigration story, playing an aspiring Salvadoran toy designer who comes to New York and ends up assisting an art critic: Tilda Swinton, the only person capable of matching Torres in being the damnedest person. It’s a visually spectacular, magical realist sendup of the NYC art scene, U.S. immigration, the horrors of FileMaker Pro, and whatever else goes through one of the damnedest minds in modern comedy. So if you’re looking for something off the beaten path, signs point to Julio.
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