Argentine filmmaker Gastón Solnicki is developing his next feature, “The Souffleur,” which he will be presenting at the Venice Gap-Financing Market, scheduled from August 30th to September 1st.

The film tells the story of Lucius Glantz, an American who’s managed the same international hotel in Vienna for 30 years. When he discovers one day that the venerable building is slated to be sold and demolished, he embarks on a quest to stop its destruction, pitting him against a cocky Argentine realtor. As the conflict between them escalates, the hotel’s trademark soufflé mysteriously stops rising, forcing Glantz to confront the prospect of the end of all he holds dear.

Directed by Solnicki from a script he co-wrote with Julia Niemann, “The Souffleur” is produced by Gabriele Kranzelbinder and Eugenio Fernández Abril for Vienna-based Little Magnet Films, Primo, and Solnicki's Argentine production company Filmy Wiktora.

The director tells Variety that the inspiration for the film came from a “peculiar, failed experience” at a restaurant in Buenos Aires, when a soufflé was “thrust upon me in a very disheartening way.”

It was a sort of betrayal for Solnicki, who studied culinary arts in his youth and was “trained in this very strict French tradition.” Describing the “torture” of preparing the iconic dish, he says: “It's not something you just follow a recipe and it happens. It's truly an act of love and an…act of faith.”

Drawing on elements of surrealism and comedy influenced by the works of Luis Buñuel, “the film plays with this idea of a building on the verge of [demolition], and a dessert that is no longer [able to rise],” Solnicki says. “There are also these feelings of wind, and the entire mythology of wind and God [breathing] life into the world. It brings infinite layers of meaning.”

Solnicki’s first narrative feature, “ Kékszakállú ,” was awarded at its premiere in the Horizons strand of the Venice Film Festival before screening in Toronto and New York. The film, which follows a group of young women in Argentina as they grapple with their uncertain future, was praised by Variety ’s Scott Tobias as a “rapturous experimental narrative” that showcased the director’s “uncommon talent.”

His latest cinematic endeavor, “ A Little Love Package ,” is a heartfelt tribute to Vienna that captures the everyday life of the Austrian capital on the brink of a city-wide smoking ban. The film had its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival’s Encounters section in 2022.

In recent years, owing to the “curious circumstances of my life,” the Argentine filmmaker has found himself drawn to Vienna, a city that feels both culturally familiar — his family has roots in Central and Eastern Europe — while also holding significance as what he described as the “birthplace of modern music.”

“My films ultimately take shape through real soundscapes,” he explains, citing his debut film as being inspired by Bela Bartok’s opera “Bluebeard’s Castle.” “This concept of absorbing music and cultural idioms of places, and the soundscapes…that are often beyond the reach of more traditional filmmaking — there’s a realm of nuances both in sound, but also in performance, working with non-professional actors, that I find cinema often neglects or, by its own noise, overshadows.”

“The Souffleur” will reunite Solnicki with Portuguese cinematographer Rui Poças, a frequent collaborator of Cannes prizewinner Miguel Gomes (“ Grand Tour ”), and will also leverage the stunning architecture of the Austrian capital as its backdrop.

“Vienna is an incredible location, but there’s no art director, no set designer, no production manager. I’m deeply committed to working in a neo-realistic style with genuine locations,” Solnicki shares.

“I’m still strongly influenced by my early days of observing my family and making those more voyeuristic first-person films. Once you become so closely connected to this documentary side of filmmaking, it’s very difficult to let go of certain cinematic devices.”