Argentine director Daniel Burman is presenting his new series 'So Far, So Good' at the Berlinale Series Market Selects. The six-part comedy explores a male protagonist's midlife challenges amid family demands. Burman describes it as an autobiographical take on emotional transitions in aging.
Daniel Burman, known for directing 'Lost Embrace'—which won the Berlin Jury Grand Prix and best actor award—and the 2022 Berlinale standout series 'Iosi, the Regretful Spy,' returns to Berlin with 'So Far, So Good.' The series, created by Burman and co-directed with Daniel Hendler, who earned a Silver Bear for 'Lost Embrace,' premieres at this week's Berlinale Series Market Selects.
The story centers on Ariel, a 50-year-old renowned cartoonist played by Benjamin Vicuña, who enjoys a loving marriage and financial stability but juggles five children from three marriages, two cats, and aging parents. In the opening episode, Ariel searches for his charger and padlock amid family chaos, with children playing piano noisily. Attempting to prepare for a Vatican award by exercising after a decade away from the gym, he suffers a hernia, leaving his muscles described by a doctor as 'Kobe meat about to disintegrate.'
Burman notes the series' autobiographical elements, arriving late to a Variety interview due to a knee treatment in an oxygen chamber before traveling to Berlin. He portrays Ariel's struggles as part of a midlife crisis, emphasizing emotional rather than physical burdens. 'It is made flesh,' Burman says of Ariel's hernia, but adds that the core issue is existential: becoming a parent to his own parents while feeling a loss of care himself.
Burman reflects on recent media trends: 'Over the last years, there’s been a very necessary movement of films and series about women with women characters. That’s very important. It’s as if this has happened, however, in detriment of portraits of male reality when in reality the two realities co-exist.' The protagonist's conflicts avoid violence or issues with femininity, focusing instead on family illusions, likened to butterfly kaleidoscopes—optical groupings without true bonds.
Produced by Argentina's Oficina Burman and Uruguay-based Cimarrón, both under The Mediapro Studio, the series is made for Flow, which holds Latin American rights, while The Mediapro Studio Distribution handles the rest of the world. Burman calls it an 'andropause comedy told with a lot of humor and emotion,' highlighting themes of what one leaves behind as a source of identity rather than conflict.
