Get Out! A weekend of Japanese films, top-tier theater and Brazilian pop art

Whether you’ve been hiding from the heat or avoiding the back-to-work rush after the festive period, Buenos Aires offers plenty of reasons to get up off the couch this weekend. From dream-hopping Japanese anime and cult cinema to bold Brazilian pop art and prestige theater starring Leonardo Sbaraglia, the city’s cultural calendar is working overtime.Here’s where to go to keep your January smart, cultural and pleasantly air-conditioned. Masterpieces of Japanese cinema, all around Gaumont Theater (Rivadavia 1635) Malba (Av. Figueroa Alcorta 3415) Cinemark theaters Spirited Away (left) and Paprika (right) will both be screened in January Some of the best-regarded Japanese films will screen this weekend and throughout January in Buenos Aires. The Gaumont Cinema is playing a great selection of Studio Ghibli films, including some of Hayao Miyazaki’s finest works like Spirited Away (2001) and Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989). The program, which runs from January 2 to 28 with films playing at 7 p.m, also includes films by Isao Takahata and Kenji Iwaisawa. Tickets can be purchased at the box office or on the theater’s website. All films have Spanish subtitles. It’s been 20 years since Satoshi Kon blew people’s minds with Paprika, an animated sci fi film based on Yasutaka Tsutsui’s novel in which therapists use a device to enter patients’ dreams. This influential work, which inspired films like Christopher Nolan’s Inception, will have an anniversary celebration release on January 8 at the Cinemark multiplex theaters and will run through the weekend. Finally, the Malba theater will play five films by Japanese master Seijun Suzuki. In the 1960s, this cult director’s radical style subverted the Japanese film studio system from within. Screening all films in 35mm prints, the program sponsored by the Japanese Embassy includes his 1966 classic Tokyo Drifter, a clear influence for Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, which plays January 8 at 10 p.m. The series plays on Thursdays 8, 22 and 29 of January, with tickets at AR$7,000. Brazilian Pop Art at Malba Throughout January until February 2 Malba (Av. Figueroa Alcorta 3415) Tickets: AR$10,000 (50% discount on Wednesdays) Claudio Tozzi. Cover of Veja magazine, 1968 Organized by the Pinacoteca de São Paulo for the 60th anniversary of two fundamental exhibitions of Brazilian art — Opinião 65 and Propostas 65 — Pop Brazil: Vanguard and New Figuration, 1960s-70s is the most important and extensive exhibition presented in our country on the innovative and radical art of Brazilian artists of those decades. Tickets can be purchased online.  The show features more than 120 pieces by 50 artists, including Anna Bella Geiger, Antônio Dias, Claudio Tozzi, and Hélio Oiticica, among other leading figures of that period. The exhibit includes special screenings of two films by some of the greatest Brazilian filmmakers: Joaquim Pedro de Andrade’s 1962 documentary on legendary football player Garrincha, and Rogério Sganzerla’s radical and violent cult piece The Red Light Bandit (1968). Entry to both screenings is free, booking in advance on the Malba website. William Faulkner, Daniel Veronese and Leonardo Sbaraglia  January 9 to February 1Wednesdays to Sundays, 9 p.m. National Cervantes Theater (Libertad 815) Tickets starting at AR$20,000 Leonardo Sbaraglia in Los días perfectos The National Cervantes Theater kicks off the 2026 season with a bang: renowned playwright Daniel Veronese adapts Jacobo Bergareche’s novel Los dias perfectos, featuring Argentine star Leonardo Sbaraglia — soon to be seen starring Pedro Almodovar’s latest film — in a one-man show about the stages of love.  In a Texas documentation center, Sbaraglia’s character reads the original letters William Faulkner wrote to his lover Meta Carpenter. He reviews 17 years of living together, the desire to start a family, the inevitable routine, and that silent inventory of what is lost, what is held onto, and what is feared to be lost in the natural course of a relationship that, in their youth, seemed idyllic.