The Dependent

El dependiente is a 1969 Argentine drama film directed by Leonardo Favio and starring Graciela Borges, Walter Vidarte, Fernando Iglesias and Nora Cullen. It is based on the short story of the same name by Jorge Zuhair Jury, Favio's brother and frequent collaborator, with whom he also co-wrote the screenplay alongside Roberto Irigoyen. Set in a small provincial town, the film tells the story of Mr. Fernández, a lonely shop assistant in a hardware store that falls in love with Miss Plasini, a mysterious and isolated woman who lives with her mother. It is the last installment of an unofficial trilogy of films Favio made in the 1960s, after Crónica de un niño solo (1965) and El romance del Aniceto y la Francisca (1967), which have earned him recognition as one of the most important auteurs of Argentine cinema, despite not being so well known outside the country. The film was produced by Leopoldo Torre Nilsson through his company Contracuadro, and was shot in the spring of 1968 in the then small town of Derqui, in the Pilar district of the province of Buenos Aires.