Matías Recalt

In Society of the Snow (2023), Matías Recalt’s Roberto Canessa is stubborn, but he cannot manage without the people beside him. Recalt is persuasive because that resolve still has to accommodate other people’s fear and disagreement. We like the way he belongs to the group without making Canessa’s determination disappear into it. This is acting that serves a survival drama well: the character has something to push for, while the people around him have needs that cannot simply be ignored.

His professional beginnings came with the television series Apache: The Life of Carlos Tevez (2019) and the film Ciegos (2019). Planners (2023) brought wider attention before Canessa became his international breakthrough. That is a short route to a part likely to dominate discussion of an actor, and we would be careful about treating it as a complete account of what he can do. For Society of the Snow, his preparation included meetings with survivors and two months of rehearsal. The value of that work is apparent in how convincingly he fits among the others.

J. A. Bayona gives him a setting in which that matters. Enzo Vogrincic’s Numa Turcatti and Agustín Pardella’s Fernando “Nando” Parrado help make the ensemble’s relationships central to the film, rather than a pause between ordeals. We were moved by the tenderness between people with so little left to offer, because Bayona allows them to be caring and frightened at once. Recalt contributes to that without needing to be singled out from the group. The film’s repetitive middle is a real weakness, but the actors give us a reason to stay with it.

Caught (2025), with Recalt as Bruno Meller Garay, takes him into a television thriller. We would rather see what different parts draw from him than ask him to keep demonstrating the same toughness. Start with Society of the Snow, and watch how much he contributes when he is one of several people who need to be heard.