Dario Grandinetti, an Argentinian living in Spain, is in good shape as he shifts his activity and embraces a new focus. Margarita Morán has not danced again since she left her country and the dance and life partner she shared it with. Neither of them is standing still. He lives closely with his friend Pichuquito, the former manager who cares little for life as such and continues to reside in the Rosario neighborhood. This is how the story of The Dance Begins unfolds. The conversation about the film brings together Grandinetti, its director and its screenwriter to explore the project from multiple angles.
Can The Dance Begins be considered a romantic road movie that ultimately becomes a meditation on friendship and life itself?
Marina Seresesky responds that while The Dance Begins may carry a romantic comedy surface, its heart lies in a different love: friendship and a deep affection for a place that shaped the characters.
Grandinetti adds that the trio develops a shared craft they nurture with great passion, a practice that binds them beyond romance or work.
The interview also reflects on Argentina forty years on, and on how a tango rink can be transformed into an ice rink, signaling a country undergoing change.
DG notes that all Argentines understand exile in one way or another. He aimed to tell a nostalgic, affectionate tale rather than a melancholic one, acknowledging that memories can be unreliable and that those who left still long for something, choosing how to remember as they please.
WOMAN recalls that the past can feel like a physical place, an idealized country. She, who has lived in Spain for twenty-four years, treats that return as a transformative voyage within the film. When a person comes back, they are not the same, and what happened alters everything. Returning becomes difficult because everything has changed.
DG argues against the idea that one should never visit a happy place again, insisting that it is possible to revisit those spaces many times and discover happiness in a new way.
The film is noted for its strong humor, blending tones from intimate and light to the starkly dark, yet it does not aim to be a standard jokey comedy.
DG explains that actors must capture the mood of the characters rather than impose a personal frame, emphasizing the importance of stepping back to observe from the outside and letting laughter flow naturally through the performances.
WOMAN adds that her goal was not to push comedy or tragedy to extremes, but to stage a difficult crossing, a precarious crossing that also highlights a core value carried from childhood — a sense of wonder that deserves revaluation.
Questioning why two former tango dancers appear as forgotten stars, she explains that they were meant to look like characters who drifted from a narrative and then reemerge to reappear in the story. They embody people who feel displaced in space and time as they traverse Argentina, individuals who seem to have become vanishingly scarce or distant.
As tango is widely celebrated as the national dance of Argentina, the film treats this art as a connective force, a practice that fuses bodies and emotions. The dance is portrayed as a movement of closeness and commitment, one that cannot be danced with only the head but requires a full, grounded engagement of the senses. This is exactly the experience the protagonists undergo on their journey.
DG sums up by noting that the moment the film bears its title, The Dance Begins, signals a gradual reopening of the characters, a process of immersion and discovery as they move forward together, choosing to embrace what lies ahead rather than clinging to what is lost.