‘The Prince of Nanawa’ Review: A Remarkable Documentary of Growing Up

It all begins by chance. Or so it seems. In the mid-2010s, while shooting a documentary about the porous border between Argentina and Paraguay, filmmaker Clarisa Navas encounters a nine-year-old boy who keeps trailing the crew through the bustling market that links Clorinda and Nanawa. The blond child is so persistent and perceptive that Navas eventually interviews him. Unfazed by the camera or the microphone, Angel Stegmayer quickly reveals himself to be witty, curious, and remarkably talkative—an unmistakable presence. From that moment on—at least as The Prince of Nanawa presents it—the director of One in a Thousand decides to return to the area in search of Ángel and make a film about him. She may not have known it then, but this decision would lead to a decade-long commitment, culminating in what can be considered a definitive coming-of-age film: one that captures all the changes, detours, and upheavals that can shape a life from childhood to adulthood.

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize in the International Competition at Visions du Réel—one of the world’s most important nonfiction festivals—The Prince of Nanawa runs over three and a half hours and unfolds in two distinct phases, largely shaped by the pandemic. Navas and her small crew follow Angel through sporadic visits—specific dates are never identified—that gradually stretch across the years. At first, everything feels relatively innocent. Angel is a lively, excitable boy from a modest neighborhood, eager to articulate his thoughts on camera as he moves between his quiet parents and a loose network of friends and acquaintances. Because of his extroverted personality—and perhaps his cherubic, blond appearance—Angel earns the nickname “the little prince.” Everyone seems to know him, greet him, joke with him. In a way, he becomes the unofficial mascot of that borderland community.

The most obvious point of reference for understanding The Prince of Nanawa is Richard Linklater’s Boyhood (2014), which similarly follows a boy over the course of twelve years. But where Linklater’s film is meticulously scripted fiction, Navas’s work is pure reality. There is no narrative design shaping Angel’s life, no manipulation of events. What drives the film are his lived experiences: the choices he makes, the relationships he forms, the transformations within his family, and even global disruptions like the pandemic. Navas and her team gradually become visible participants in the story. The film openly acknowledges, in more than one sense, that it is entangled in Angel’s life—and that it influences certain events simply by being there. One of the documentary’s central tensions eventually becomes Angel’s increasingly fraught relationship with the film itself.

What emerges most strongly—though never in a straight line—is a shift in perspective, a gradual erosion of childhood sparkle that becomes evident each time the camera reunites with him. By the time Angel reaches thirteen or fourteen, that early innocence has faded. He begins to articulate new ideas, often clashing with Navas and her crew as they try to navigate his increasingly complex emotional landscape. At this critical age, under the pressure of peer influence, Angel seems torn between social expectations—perhaps a more aggressive model of masculinity—and his own desire to continue being filmed by a group of adults who, inevitably, have become part of his everyday life.

The film barely spells it out, but the decade it chronicles coincides with a period of deep economic crisis in Argentina—one that profoundly altered people’s lives. The effects are visible not only in the changing appearance of the Clorinda–Nanawa market area, also known as the Friendship Footbridge, but in the weight placed on Angel’s shoulders as he is forced to make financial and work-related decisions at a very young age. At several points, the documentary shows him performing physically demanding labor, often tied to one of the region’s most common activities: carrying goods across the border.

If the first half of The Prince of Nanawa feels loose, almost casual—composed of everyday vignettes and fleeting observations—the second half grows denser and more emotionally charged. Without revealing too much, two forces arrive almost simultaneously. One is the pandemic, with its isolation, online communication, and self-recorded footage. The other is even more complicated: adolescence. Angel’s physical transformation from one appearance to the next is striking, but the deeper change is internal. His personality shifts, his conflicts grow heavier, new family dynamics emerge, and his relationships with friends and girlfriends take on greater emotional weight.

What ultimately unfolds in this extraordinary document called The Prince of Nanawa is time itself: life in motion, shaped by small—and not so small—alterations that gradually redefine who we are, especially at an age when identity, self-image, and worldviews are constantly in flux. By the time the film —already a strong contender for the best Argentine film of the year— reaches its end, an enormous amount has happened in Angel’s life, far more than most children experience in such a short span. He is still recognizably the same person, and yet unmistakably different. Something subtle, almost invisible, has shifted. It is not just his height or his deeper voice. It is what we usually call innocence—something we already know will never return.