Nicolas is a priest on mission deep in the forest. One night his group is attacked and killed by paramilitary forces. His reaction is to run for his life and hide. Frustrated by impotence and overcome by guilt, he accepts the invitation of his old friend Julian, also a priest, to join a project in the Buenos Aires shanty town, Villa Ciudad Oculta. His new position is located at the foot of the Elefante Blanco, an enormous half-built construction initially intended to become a public hospital, but abandoned as a cement shell no use as anything but shelter for the homeless and as a place to play for the local kids. There he meets Luciana, a lawyer who is fighting to have the work restarted. Together the three have sufficient strength to confront the problems; but, above all, they are obliged to confront their different ways of understanding faith and surrender, their commitment and generosity, the immobilism of the hierarchy and the tectonic movements in each one.   

First appeared on the scene in 1999 with Mundo grúa, presented at the Venice Festival. El bonaerense (2002) was premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes. That same year he founded the production company Matanza Cine in Buenos Aires. He returned to Venice in 2004 with Familia rodante, followed by Nacido y criado (2006) and Leonera (2008), which competed at Cannes and in Horizontes Latinos at San Sebastian. Carancho (2010) was Argentina's Academy Award candidate for Best Foreign Language Film. Elefante Blanco participated in the Un Certain Regard section at the last  Festival de Cannes. Trapero was a member of the Official Jury at the San Sebastian Festival in 2010.