Jorge has been working at the Cinematheque in Montevideo, Uruguay, for 25 years. Its imminent closing forces him to take drastic steps and become the star of his own life. Shot in black and white, A Useful Life is an entertaining homage to a life of film.

Jorge (45) lives with his parents and has been working at a film archive for 25 years. He does technical jobs, programming work, and hosts a radio show about films. The situation is increasingly dire at the film archive and Jorge, who has never worked anywhere else but in film, loses his job. La vida útil won the Films in Progress Industry Award in 2009, while Acne, his first film, participated in the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at Cannes 2008 and San Sebastian’s Horizontes Latinos in 2008.