Sidewalls

On a city of three million, two strangers live in neighboring worlds but never meet. Martin is a neurotic web designer who measures life in screens and tiny steps outside his one room. Mariana is an artist just out of a long relationship, painting color into her days while her heart recovers. They share a street, but inhabit opposite buildings, and the gap between them feels as wide as the avenues that divide the city. The everyday rhythms of buses, cafés, and stairwells become a stage for longing, misreads, and small acts of connection. Sidewalls looks at how a modern metropolis can shelter intimacy and still keep people apart, until chance or design nudges them toward each other, and a quiet ache that lingers.

Directed by Gustavo Taretto from original screenplay, Sidewalls was produced on a midrange budget and shot in Argentina. The film stars Pilar López de Ayala and Javier Drolas, delivering a restrained drama about urban life and romance with intimate tone.

Box office records show a tiny worldwide gross of 2,140, underscoring its status as an art house release with limited theater exposure. The film found its audience mainly in festivals and specialty venues that celebrate intimate, character driven dramas.

Critics praised its humane view of loneliness and the subtle humor that springs from city life. The film threads themes of isolation, chance encounters, and the ways architecture shapes how people meet or miss one another. Its camera work invites viewers to notice the small details that accumulate into connection.

Sidewalls has resonated with urban watchers for its visual poetry and compact meditation on how strangers share a street. Its memory of windows and walls and the city as a character keeps surfacing in discussions of contemporary urban romance on screen, inspiring filmmakers to look up and notice ordinary spaces.