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This Argentine dramatic anthology represents the second collaborative effort of Nicolas Saad, Mariano De Rosa, Salvador Roselli and Rodrigo Moreno, all graduates of Argentina's main film school, the Universidad del Cine (their first film together was the critically acclaimed Moebius). The four vignettes all take place in Buenos Aires during the state elections and offer unflinching and often unflattering looks at Argentine society as it prepares to enter the 21st century. The first episode "The Wish" centers on a poor country boy who finds success in the teeming city by participating in one of its many illegal operations. The second, "Life and Works," follows a band of Paraguayan construction workers as they try to reestablish a sense of cultural pride and community after meeting a woman whom one of them believes is the Virgin Mary. "Hard Times" follows a teenage outcast in his endeavors to romance an upper-class girl, and in "Comrades" the sound recordist of a campaigning politician finds himself unwittingly entangled in some shady business. Bad Times competed in the 1998 Turin Film Festival and was nominated for the Prize of the City of Torino.