There are many ways to process grief. Some of them are beneficial, accompanied by a sense of healing and the ability to move on from the pain and loss, while others are like an anchor, prohibiting one from moving on from the ache death causes and cementing one in a moment in time. In his feature-length directorial debut, Gabriel de Varona (Overtime) tackles love and sorrow with a comedic twist in The Old Man and the Parrot, having its world premiere in the Narrative Features section of Slamdance Film Festival 2026. At once both outrageous and exceptionally grounded, de Varona’s dramedy offers a gentle reminder that our time is short and sweet for certain, so enjoy it while we can, even if that means embracing what seems odd to our neighbors.
Ruben Rabasa as Praxi in THE OLD MAN AND THE PARROT. Photo courtesy of Cocuyo Productions.
To people on the outside, Praxi Rodriguez (Ruben Rabasa) is a little nutty as he travels around Little Havanna with his taxidermy parrot in tow. The inseparable pair participate in open mic comedy acts, get food, and lounge together, which make some think it’s all a bit, a prolonged joke they can’t understand. For Praxi, however, the parrot contains the spirit of his partner, Yoelvis (René Lavan), and, while not ideal, this allows them to continue on together. Until, that is, something changes and Praxi must track down the man who did this to Yoelvis, supposed spiritualist Radel (Serafin Falcon), and get Radel to free Yoelvis from his taxidermy container.
With the premise as it is, one imagines The Old Man and the Parrot to be a surreal comedy, a tale in which reality and superstition and/or faith intertwine until one isn’t sure which is what and what is whom. Scribes de Varona (Overtime) and first-time screenwriter Kevin Ondarza avoid such low-hanging fruit and ground the film in its love story(ies) so that the comedy is frequently sweet and gentle, the threats of violence inconsequential, and the love pure. The structure of the film is important to accomplish this as it opens with Praxi walking down a street, he and his parrot rousing odd reactions from folks, as he journeys across Little Havana to a place we know not where, but upon his arrival is treated (through Rabasa’s performance) with a mixture of delight, curiosity, and purpose. Even as he finds his way in to the home of someone, Rabasa’s movements and Praxi’s approach aren’t ones of imposing threat, but of joy. If not for the premise of the film, Praxi’s entrance could be mistaken for an old friend finding an unorthodox way of entertaining another’s home when the front door is locked — no harm, no foul, all affection. From here, de Varona and Ondarza start jumping backward in time to present the winding story that brings us to Praxi’s mission. Through the time jump format — starting in the present, moving back, returning, and going back again — throughout the film, de Varona and Ondarza are able to maintain a sense of hilarity and lightness that would be far more difficult otherwise. Told straight, The Old Man and the Parrot would be a conventional drama with a potential break from reality rather than a dramedy which lures its audience in through a slightly off-center lead character. Impressively, most often, rather than feeling like interrupted tempo, the time jumps forward and back start to feel like an inevitability, that the connection between present and past is so inherently strong, like magnets, we must go back to understand today and, to redeem ourselves in today, we must go back to the past.
René Lavan as Yoelvis in THE OLD MAN AND THE PARROT. Photo courtesy of Cocuyo Productions.
This aspect becomes even more clear through the narrative exploration of grief and loss. If one doesn’t believe in soul transference, one presumes that Praxi has lost his mind, that Praxi has found a strange solace in believing that the parrot contains Yoelvis’s soul. If true, it’s a terrible irony de Varona and Ondarza have enacted (which will make sense upon seeing the film); however, aside from this, it’s also something that feels ordinary in the way that someone might cling to an object due to some tangentially-related connection. For instance, in the wake of death, there are songs and movies that possess a new weight while certain meals are consumed like a salve. One may laugh at Praxi for carrying the parrot, but it’s due to the sincerity of Rabasa’s performance that we giggle, not because we think he’s gone round the bend. Especially as the story of Praxi and the parrot is laid before us, the comedy comes not from pain, but the lengths one will go to release a contained spirit (Praxi) or to preserve a grudge (Radel). Without the time jump structure, many of the emotional beats and their accompanying revelations wouldn’t hit as hard, including the notion that all of us are suffering from some kind of grief, some kind of loss, and by perpetually centering our own pain do we fail to see the battles of others.
The cast of The Old Man and the Parrot is small, bringing an intense intimacy. Rabasa is at its core, channeling a kindness through the film which makes the somewhat violent turn of Praxi heartbreaking. As Praxi’s focal point, Falcon imbues Radel with a charismatic charm so that we’re unsure if he’s a bullshit artist or the real deal. Falcon’s scene work with Radel’s daughter Ana (played in the present by Isabella Bobadilla and in the past by Mia Rose Chamorro) threatens to overtake the film as it’s nothing but heart, thereby breaking through any suggestion of Radel’s criminality to little more than insinuation rather than reality. Much in the same way that Praxi leans toward gentleness in all things, so does Radel, including a daughter of whom he’s lost custody yet to whom he remains as close as possible. Both actors make the supposed cruelty that their character inflict and humor they insert as honest and redeemable as one can hope for a dramedy without undercutting the narrative intention. For their parts, Lavan, Bobadilla, and Chamaro are not empty shirts, their performances revealing fully-formed figures that exist outside the paradigm of comedic expectation.
Serafin Falcon as Radel in THE OLD MAN AND THE PARROT. Photo courtesy of Cocuyo Productions.
For the most part, we do not know when or how our time will come. We know that for every beginning there is an end, our comfort potentially coming from the moments derived in between. One can easily turn sour, to crave even delusional comfort, at the notion of being shorted on time with someone; that there were memories to make, plans to execute, dreams to fulfill that never will occur; that it’s easier to blame others in one’s newly-created void, rather than cherish what was in this new reality cleaved by loss. To that end, de Varona and Ondarza craft a comedic love story wherein the message is to let go in order to keep them with you because clinging does little more than increase grief and anguish. These may seem counterintuitive, but, so often do comedy and drama address these concepts and they intermingle just fine in the proper hands. de Varona establishes his directorial debut as not only proper, but kind and gentle.
Screening during Slamdance Film Festival 2026.
For more information, head to the official Slamdance Film Festival The Old Man and the Parrot webpage.
Final Score: 4 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews
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