Lagoon (Laguna)

On a summer night in Viña del Mar, a young drifter is pulled by an old friend into a whirlwind narco night full of drugs, guns, and violence. What begins as a quiet afternoon turns into an unforgettable adventure, loaded with action and unexpected dangers.

Summer of 1992 in Viña del Mar, Chile: heat, a famous festival, and neon lights. An anonymous narrator returns to the city, running away from home, and crosses paths with Chino, an old acquaintance: pub musician, marijuana dealer, a player in a dangerous league.

Chino makes him an offer impossible to refuse: a job, something quick. He doesn’t know what it entails, but Chino promises a wild night, without brakes, through seedy bars, smoke-filled rooms, fights, drugs, and guns. First the pub, where Chino sings and they meet Juan and Ana. Then the legendary Hotel O’Higgins, with shady characters settling debts with their fists. Then, the road. Chino confesses to the narrator that he owes money to dangerous people, and that’s why he must do what he’s doing tonight. Under Juan and Ana’s orders, Chino and the narrator head to El Belloto, where Clara and Willy await. Willy hands them a bag full of guns.

Back in Viña del Mar, the delivery leads them to Juan and Ana. The night continues in a dark party: cocaine, sex with strangers, disassociation, and the vertigo of feeling that something huge is about to explode. Ana confirms it: this is no longer just business—Viña is a battlefield between local gangs and groups from Santiago. In the middle of this war, they (Juan, Ana, Chino, and the narrator) must make a delivery at Sausalito Lagoon, which they reach just before dawn.

At the lagoon, everything blows up. The men meant to receive the guns and cocaine kill Chino. A brutal, point-blank shootout. Everyone falls. Only the narrator and Ana survive, escaping together to Isla Negra. Days of hiding, drugs, half-confessions—until one morning Ana disappears. Years later, the narrator remains trapped in that memory: Viña del Mar, a city that was never what it seemed, full of violence, power, and ghosts.

RELEVANT INFORMATION: Álvaro Bisama is a Chilean writer, winner of the Municipal Literature Prize, the Academia Prize (awarded by the Chilean Language Academy), and the Best Literary Work Award in the Novel category.

In Lagoon, everything happens over the course of a single night: a narco night, fast-paced, tinged with lyricism and dreamlike echoes. The novel holds great potential to become a one-night movie that combines the pulse of a crime thriller with elements of a road movie in a hypnotic, ghostly atmosphere. Its linear structure supports a tension-filled narrative, enriched by the existential drift of the characters, especially the protagonist: an observer caught between violence, disorientation, and drugs.

AUDIOVISUAL POTENTIAL: TV Series, Miniseries, Feature Film, TV Film.

AVAILABLE LANGUAGES: Spanish.