Eighty-three years old and newly hired as a private investigator's mole, Sergio Chamy checks into a retirement home in The Mole Agent under an assignment nobody there knows about.
What is The Mole Agent about?
Maite Alberdi's documentary follows an unusual assignment: a private investigator named Romulo brings in Sergio Chamy, an older man, to move into a retirement home and quietly observe conditions there after a client raised concerns about a parent's care. What plays out resembles a spy story on the surface, complete with a hidden camera and coded phone calls, but the film keeps drifting toward something gentler as Sergio grows close to the residents around him. Loneliness, friendship and the slow passage of time in the home take over from the original assignment, and Alberdi lets that shift happen without forcing it. The result blurs documentary and staged scene in a way that drew wide festival attention on release.
About the cast
Sergio Chamy carries the film as the retiree turned undercover observer, an ordinary man asked to play a role he never expected at his age. Romulo Aitken appears as the investigator who recruits him and steers the assignment from outside the home.
Context & significance
The Mole Agent was released in 2020 as a co-production spanning Chile, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and the United States, and it found an international audience for its blend of documentary observation and light spy-film structure. At 89 minutes, it stays close to its single setting, using that constraint to build intimacy with the residents on screen rather than range across a wider story. The film earned a strongly favorable critical reception and traveled widely through festival and awards circuits after release, becoming one of the more discussed documentaries of its year.
Watching The Mole Agent on Ktime
The Mole Agent is available with a Persian dub on K-Time, letting Farsi-speaking audiences follow Sergio's story without subtitles. Watch on K-Time with a free account login, part of a catalogue built with the Farsi interface the Iranian diaspora relies on.