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The Lighthouse (1998 film)

The Lighthouse (Spanish: El faro, also known as El Faro del Sur) is a 1998 Spanish-language drama film directed by Eduardo Mignogna and produced in Argentina and Spain.1 • 2 It follows two Argentine sisters orphaned by a car accident as they come of age in Uruguay and Buenos Aires, and it earned a Goya Award and multiple Silver Condor awards after its April 1998 release in Argentina.1 • 3

Key factDetail
Original titleEl faro (also released as El Faro del Sur)1 • 2
Director and writersDirected by Eduardo Mignogna; written by Graciela Aguirre, José Antonio Félez, Eduardo Mignogna, and Santiago Carlos Oves4
Countries and releaseArgentina and Spain; released April 16, 1998 in Argentina; Spanish language1
Running time109 minutes (listed as 1 hr 49 min on Box Office Mojo and 110 minutes on the DVD listing)1 • 4 • 2
Principal castIngrid Rubio, Jimena Barón, Florencia Bertotti, Ricardo Darín, Norma Aleandro, Norberto Díaz1
Awards7 wins and 9 nominations, including the 1999 Goya for Best Spanish Language Foreign Film3
Box office$8,248 worldwide, all from international releases4

Spoilers

Plot

Two Argentine sisters, Memé and Aneta, lose their mother in a car crash. Memé, the elder, is left lame, with one badly scarred leg. The orphaned girls go to Uruguay to stay with their aunts; the sisters often bicker but are actually very close.4 A fuller synopsis describes the pair as 19-year-old Carmela (Memé) and 10-year-old Aneta, who struggle to make their own way from Montevideo to Buenos Aires as misfortune continues to follow them.5

On her own, Memé works as a waitress, where she gets to know Andy (Ricardo Darín). Returning to Montevideo, the sisters meet Dolores (Norma Aleandro), a friend of their late mother. Memé's affair with a man complicates her relationship with her sister, and Andy eventually invites the pair to his seaside retreat, a lighthouse.4 The CinemaParadiso synopsis adds that Memé, already hampered by her bad leg, suffers an abortion and the removal of a lung; she later leaves Andy and marries Dolores' brother Fernando (Norberto Díaz), and the story jumps eight years forward, with the teenaged Aneta played by Florencia Bertotti.2 The lighthouse itself carries a symbolic weight in the story: at one point Carmela, broken-hearted, contemplates suicide from the perch of a mythic lighthouse.6

Cast and crew

Ingrid Rubio plays Carmela, with Jimena Barón as the young Aneta ("Aneta chica") and Florencia Bertotti as the older Aneta ("Aneta grande"). Ricardo Darín plays Andy, Norberto Díaz plays Fernando, and Norma Aleandro plays Dolores.1 Behind the camera, Baby López Fürst composed the score, Marcelo Camorino was the cinematographer, and Juan Carlos Macías and Nacho Ruiz Capillas shared editing duties.4 The film was shot in color with a Dolby Digital sound mix.1

Release and reception

The film premiered in Argentina on April 16, 1998.1 Box Office Mojo records an earliest release date of September 27, 2002 in South Korea, with a lifetime worldwide gross of $8,248, all of it from international territories.4 It screened at AFI FEST 1999 in the festival's Latin cinema series.6 On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.9 out of 10 from roughly 760 users.1

Awards

The film accumulated 7 wins and 9 nominations.3 At the 1999 Argentinean Film Critics Association Awards it won Silver Condor awards for Best Director (Eduardo Mignogna), Best Actress (Ingrid Rubio), and Best New Actress (Jimena Barón), while the film itself was nominated for Best Film and Bertotti was nominated in the Best New Actress category.3 It won the 1999 Goya Award for Best Spanish Language Foreign Film, a Spain-focused prize for which Argentina and Spain were jointly credited.3 At the 1998 Montréal World Film Festival, Rubio won Best Actress and Mignogna won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, with Mignogna also nominated for the Grand Prix des Amériques.3 The film was additionally nominated for the Golden Dolphin at the Festróia - Tróia International Film Festival and won the Audience Award at the 1999 Oslo Films from the South Festival.3

References

  1. The Lighthouse (1998), IMDb
  2. The Lighthouse (aka El Faro del Sur) (1998), CinemaParadiso
  3. The Lighthouse (1998) - Awards, IMDb
  4. The Lighthouse (1998), Box Office Mojo
  5. The Lighthouse - El faro (1998), OutNow
  6. The Lighthouse (El Faro), AFI FEST 1999

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026

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The Lighthouse (1998 film)

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