The virtues and vagaries of long-term friendship are explored with affection and knowingness in Argentine writer-director Constanza Novick’s winsome debut. Tracing their relationship from early adolescence through adulthood, The Future Ahead offers equally resonant portraits of Florencia (Pilar Gamboa) and Romina (Dolores Fonzi, also seen at the Festival in Wind Traces), women whose fierce bond ensures that their lives continue to intersect—even when jealousy threatens to push them apart.

Produced by New Argentine Cinema icon Lisandro Alonso (last at the Festival in 2009 with Liverpool), The Future Ahead points to a bright future for Novick, whose sensitivity to the myriad ways that love, work, ambition and motherhood can both complicate and fortify a friendship suggests a filmmaker with a surfeit of rich stories waiting to be told.