‘Miss Carbon’ San Sebastian Review: Breaking the Walls of Gender and Tradition

I dreamed of being a miner before I dreamed of being a woman,” says Carlita at one point in Miss Carbon. It’s a line that condenses the heart of the film: two desires that overlap, collide, and ultimately define her. Carlita is a trans teenager in Patagonia —the film was partly shot in Río Turbio, in the southwest of Santa Cruz, where the true events that inspired it took place— and like everyone around her, her life is tied to the coal mine. From childhood she’s imagined herself working in that cavernous world of darkness and danger, a place traditionally reserved for men and hostile to outsiders.

Carlita, played with quiet determination by Chilean trans actress Lux Pascal (Pedro Pascal’s sister), is no outsider to herself. Reserved but resolute, she knows what she wants and accepts the hardships that come with pursuing it. On paper, she has an advantage: her ID still lists her as male, so technically there’s nothing barring her from entering the mine. But law and custom are not the same thing. Women are considered bad luck underground —a superstition strong enough to justify their exclusion. That tension fuels the story, shaping it as a double coming-of-age: of someone determined to be both a woman and a miner, even if one identity may cancel out the other.

The film gives Carla allies in unexpected places. Estranged from her religious family, she leans on her friend (Laura Grandinetti) and, more decisively, on the trans women who run the local nightclub. Within the hard-bitten, macho mining community, these women have carved out their own space of power and influence, reflecting the tacit, if uneasy, bond between the miners and the nightlife they frequent. Beyond the hypocritical appearances and some macho posturing, everyone knows the workers and the trans women at the club are intertwined.

Visually, the film is striking. Its dusky, textured cinematography captures the harsh beauty of southern Argentina, immersing viewers in a landscape as unforgiving as it is magnetic. Agustina Macri, who previously directed Soledad, again turns to a female character breaking through invisible walls, situating the story against the backdrop of Argentina’s fight for the Gender Identity Law. Ironically, the promise of legal recognition complicates Carla’s life: being “officially” a woman might actually make her dream of mining less attainable.

It’s tempting to point out —and almost impossible not to— that Macri is the daughter of former Argentine president Mauricio Macri. The contrast is glaring: her empathetic focus on trans sex workers, marginalized labor, and small-town survival seems galaxies apart from the worldview associated with her father. But beyond biography, what matters is her attention to detail and her ability to anchor the audience in the grit and daily struggle of these lives.

Miss Carbon isn’t without flaws. Its structure is uneven, with the central conflict emerging late, and some of its commentary on gender inside the mine drifts toward caricature. At times the solemn tone feels heavy-handed. Yet the film also finds moments of levity, even romance (Spanish actor Paco León makes a welcome appearance), which broaden its emotional register. Written by Erika Halvorsen —a native of the region— with Mara Pescio (Marilyn), this Argentine-Spanish coproduction is more than a schematic tale of empowerment. It’s a film that breathes its setting, listens to its characters, and confirms Agustina Macri as a filmmaker with both a clear voice and a future worth following.