The Hunger explores excess. Inspired by the historical events fictionalized in the novel The Stranger Witness by Argentinian writer Juan José Saer, The Hunger follows the experiences of European colonizers in the Rio de la Plata region of South America in the early 16th century.
An indigenous group attacks Spanish colonizers in the north of what is now Argentina. There is only one survivor, who joins the Colastiné tribal society. Much later, he is liberated by the Spaniards and testifies, reflects and remembers his perceptions.
In The Hunger, cannibalistic rituals are transferred to other forms of greed: from colonialism to the consumer frenzy of contemporary capitalism to the hyperproduction of an endless now in social networks. Cyclical and collective rituals are intended to help maintain a fragile sense of reality, a kind of "normality" with its own social conventions and rules. "The transformation of the taboo into a totem" echoes in new forms of shifting boundaries, while one's own intimacy is devoured by the representational logic of the digital world. Does reality only exist when someone observes it?