“Most dances are for people who are falling in love. The tango is a dance for those who have survived it.”
Dear Shaded Viewers,
Hôtel Tangò is a short fashion film that fuses the raw intimacy of tango with the suspenseful allure of 1960s European thrillers and a spark of surrealism. Guided by Sally Potter’s The Tango Lesson, but embracing a more spontaneous, imperfect energy, the film unfolds in one of Berlin’s real milonga hotspots, where models—styled in standout, era-blurring pieces from the 90s and 00s—improvise tango after just an hour’s instruction, their inexperience transforming each scene into a living negotiation between reality and performance. Italian voiceover, echoing cinema’s early linguistic roots, weaves through the film like a poetic undercurrent, while an abrupt tonal shift signals the unpredictability at its core: nothing here remains as expected. Beneath its fashion-forward surface, Hôtel Tangò blurs narrative boundaries, privileging atmosphere, mood, and suggestion over traditional storytelling. Embodying the director’s roots in contemporary dance, the project thrives on productive accidents, letting moments of beauty and failure coexist as cast and real tango dancers merge in an atmosphere that is immersive, stylized, and slightly haunted. Ultimately, Hôtel Tangò is a hypnotic drift between cinema and fashion, performance and play—a space where the unknowable lingers and the meaning slips, like a figure moving between mirrors, never settling on just one reflection.
Later,
Diane
“Hôtel Tangò is a short fashion film blending the world of tango with the atmosphere of ’60s
European thrillers and a touch of surrealism. The film pays homage to Sally Potter’s The Tango
Lesson, where she learned tango by making a film about it — we attempted the same on a
smaller, more chaotic scale. Our models had only one hour of tutoring from the dancers before
stepping in front of the camera, turning the whole thing into a dance between reality and
performance.
We styled the cast in standout pieces from the 90s and 00s to create a sense of timelessness —
nothing here sits fully in the past or present. Shot in one of Berlin’s real milonga hotspots, Hôtel
Tangò blends the city’s living tango scene with cinematic fantasy, constantly shifting between
reality and performance.
The abstract Italian narration reflects our view of Italian as an elegant meeting point between
the Spanish of tango’s Argentinian origins and the French roots of early cinema, weaving
together language, place, and movement into a poetic thread. The sudden mood shift halfway
through is our wink to the audience: nothing here stays as expected.”
Vladislaw Sinchuk
Director’s Statement — Hôtel Tangò
Hôtel Tangò is a fashion film that moves toward something more elusive — a cinematic space
shaped by ambiguity, mood, and suggestion. While the styling, casting, and make-up are
central, I wanted the film to shift between surface and depth, drawing on suspense, withholding
resolution, and allowing space for interpretation. There is a loose narrative, but it functions more
as misdirection than guidance — a quiet kind of cinematic hooliganism. For those who look
closely, subtle cues remain, but the meaning is never fixed.
While preparing the film, I had the chance to connect with the local tango community. I invited
several dancers from this community to appear in the film — their unique quirks, rhythms, and
gestures became part of the world we were building, adding authenticity within stylization.
Similar to Sally Potter, the director of “The Tango Lesson”
, I come from a background in
contemporary dance, which continues to inform how I approach filmmaking. With this project, I
was interested in the space between movement and narrative — in what happens when
performers are asked to become something they haven’t yet mastered. We didn’t expect our
cast to learn tango in an hour. What interested me was watching them try — to survive inside a
surreal and unfamiliar world, improvising their way through long, unbroken sequences where
beauty and failure overlap. The dance scenes were shot in the course of a single day, under
time pressure and with limited control. I leaned into this — letting the process unfold in a spirit
closer to productive amateurism than perfectionism. Accidents were not corrected. They were
absorbed. This looseness gave the film a kind of lived-in texture I continue to seek in my work.
Hôtel Tangò feels like a natural continuation of Film a Sketches, my previous project. I’m still
drawn to building strange, atmospheric worlds that hover between the real and the imagined.
Influenced by the dreamlike logic of Raúl Ruiz, I aim to construct films that unfold like memory
— fragmented, intuitive, and slightly haunted. The image doesn’t just support the story; it
contains its own quiet narrative, its own internal poetry.
For me, Hôtel Tangò is a dance between cinema and fashion, performance and play, and the
pleasure of not quite knowing what’s real.
Poem:
As I climbed endless staircases and passed through infinite corridors,
I caught fleeting reflections in the rooms: friends, faces, riddles, rivals.
I raise a glass to those consumed by boredom and disillusionment,
to the wandering souls, prisoners of passions time has sealed,
perhaps forever suspended in a desire never spoken.
If time and space are immutable forces,
then we are only shadows, sketches drawn by a silent, eternal hand.
And the abyss is not to be feared,
for what is forgotten has already been written, already revealed,
and will return — perhaps with another face, in another broken mirror.
CAST
Harald Schröpfer as „The Portal Master“
Tango Models:
Maria, Nomin, Anya, Marvella Mirrrs Models
Sofia, Sophie, Nia Lemanagement
Daniela and Fritz M4 Management
Nina Louisa Management
Pace Kult Models
Carlos Take3 Management
Tango Dancers:
Daniela & Carlos
Wen & Diego
Tania & Sven
Katarina & Bülent
Susanne & Alessio
Director: @waldi.sinchuk
Style/Production: @nelfenfen
Casting: @whitecasting
Head of Hair & Make-Up: @diekunst
DP: @ulitowski
Gaffer: @marguliv
Set-Design: @sebastiansnymn
Artworks by: @alexanderskorobogatov
Editor: @jul.cres
Edit Contribution: @vincentfleischmann & @juliegft
Colour/VFX: @brule0ne
Additional VFX: Igor Gryadov
Title Design / Poster: @z0nd3r
Composer: @volochay_
anatoly
Sound Design: @kptransmission
ADR Mixer: @sasha
valent
__
Hair Assistant: @mickael
ambrosino
hair
Make-Up Assistant: @alv
mua
Make-Up Assistant: @rafadelgado.makeup
Set-Design Assistants:
@ratnatrat
@eigenname
Tatenda Mudavanhu
Special Thanks:
Frank, Alix, Leonid, Thomas Rieser & Tango Nou.
