Sunday 21st April marked the close of the 15th edition of the Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival (BAFICI). This festival, which has become one of the city’s most important cultural events over the past decade and a half, attracts filmmakers and other industry figures from across the world; this year, 49 countries participated along with 211 foreign guests such as Pablo Larraín (Chilean director of the film that opened the festival, ‘No’), Brazilian filmmaker Júlio Bressane and French director Agnès Jaoui, whose film ‘Au bout du conte’ was the closing film.

French film ‘Au bout du conte’ by Agnès Jaoui, was the closing film.

Over the past 15 years, many illustrious film figures have stood at the helm of the festival, including Andrés Di Tella, Eduardo Antín (Quintín), Fernando Martín Peña and Sergio Wolf. This year, the film critic Marcelo Panozzo took over as artistic director and though the basics remained the same, there were some new twists on the festival’s workings. First, Panozzo decided to give the public a chance to see the opening night film, adding an outdoor screening of the Chilean film ‘No’ to the exclusive guest-list only showing. In addition, this year’s festival program highlighted less “intellectual” genres like comedies, thrillers and exploitation flicks. The selection of Adolfo Aristarain as the first Argentine director to be honored by a retrospective in the festival also points to what could be called a more “popular” approach to the festival’s programming with films like ‘La playa del amor’ (‘The Beach of Love’). The festival, however, remains a showcase of Argentine filmmaking and a chance for porteños and visitors to get a glimpse of some of the best independent productions worldwide.

A total of 473 films were screened during the ten-day festival, including 272 features, 36 medium-length films and 165 shorts at the 11 locations across the city that participated in the festival, including the Parque Centenario Ampitheatre, which offered free screenings as part of ‘BAFICI al aire libre’. Some 370,000 people came to these events, which also included six live concerts, 30 talks, meetings, presentations and seminars along with the ’100 Extra Hours’ of screenings at the Cronopios room every day of the festival.

Celebrating the festival’s 15th anniversary also meant celebrating Argentine film in several ways. First, the Argentine affiliate of FIPRESCI was invited to choose 15 contemporary Argentine films that made their mark on filmmaking. The films chosen were ‘El amor (Primera Parte)’ by Fadel, Maúregui, Mite and Schnitman; ‘El árbol’ by Gustavo Fontán; ‘Bonanza’ by Ulises Rosell; ‘El estudiante’ by Santiago Mitre; ‘M’ by Nicolás Prividera; ‘Modelo 73′ by Rodrigo Moscoso; ‘Mundo Grúa’, by Pablo Trapero; ‘Pacto de silencio’ by Carlos Echeverría; ‘Parapalo’s by Ana Poliak; ‘Los salvajes’ by Alejandro Fadel; ‘Silvia Prieto’ by Martín Rejtman; ‘Süden’ by Gastón Solnicki; and ‘Tan de repente’ by Diego Lerman.

Celebrated director Pablo Trapero was “present” in all of the films of this year’s festival, since he was invited to direct all three of the short films shown before each screening: ‘Mar’, ‘Tierra’ and ‘Cielo’.

The following is a full list of the winners of this year’s festival:

ISAT AUDIENCE AWARD – CINECOLOR

Best Argentine Film: ‘Ramón Ayala’ by Marcos López (Argentina, 2013)

Best International Film: ‘AninA’ by Alfredo Soderguit (Colombia, Uruguay, 2013)

ISAT Audience Award Argentine Film winner: ‘Ramon Ayala’ by Marcos Lopez

BAFICITO

Best BAFICITO Film: ‘Rodencia y el diente de la princesa’ by David Bisbano (Argentina, 2013).

SHORTS

First Prize: ’9 vacunas’ by Iair Said (Argentina, 2012).

Second Prize: ‘Yo y Maru 2012′ by Juan Renau (Argentina, 2013).

Special mentions: ‘La mujer perseguida’ by Jerónimo Quevedo (Argentina, 2013) and ‘Un sueño recurrente’ by Santiago Esteves (Argentina, 2013).

BAFICITO First Prize winner: 9 vacunas by Iair Said

HUMAN RIGHTS COMPETITION

Best Film: ‘Materia Oscura’ by Massimo D’Anolfi and Martina Parenti (Italy, 2013).

Mention: ‘My Afghanistan, Life in the Forbidden Zone’ by Nagieb Khaja (Denmark, 2012).

Human Rights Competition Best Film winner: Materia Oscura by Massimo D’Anolfi and Martina Parenti

AVANT-GARDE AND GENRE

Best Short Film: ‘A story for the Modlins’ by Sergio Oksman (Spain, 2012).

Best Feature: ‘Joven y alocada’ by Marialy Rivas (Chile, 2012).

Grand Prize: ‘Arraianos’ by Eloy Enciso (Spain, 2012).

Avant Guard and Genre Grand Prize winner: Arraianos by Eloy Enciso

ARGENTINE COMPETITION

Best film: ‘La paz’ by Santiago Loza (Argentina, 2013).

Special Mention: ‘El loro y el cisne’ by Alejo Moguillansky (Argentina, 2013).

Best Director: Raúl Perrone for the film ‘P3ND3J05′ (Argentina, 2013).

Argentine Competition Best Film winner: La paz by Santiago Loza

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

Best Film: ‘Berberian Sound Studio’ by Peter Strickland (UK, 2012).

Special Mention: ‘Playback’ by Antoine Cattin and Pavel Kostomarov (Switzerland, 2012).

Best Actor: Francesco Carril in ‘Los Ilusos’ by Jonás Trueba (Spain, 2013).

Best Actress: María Villar, Agustina Muñoz, Elisa Carricajo and Romina Paula in ‘Viola’ by Matías Piñeiro (Argentina, 2012) .

Best Director: Matt Porterfield for the film ‘I used to be darker’ (USA, 2013).

Jury’s Award: ‘Leones’ by Jazmín López (Argentina-France-Holland, 2012).

International Competition Best Film winner: Berberian Sound Studio by Peter Strickland

Film writer Wendy Gosselin continues her coverage of this year’s BAFICI festival with reviews of Argentine productions Viola and Los Posibles and Brazilian documentary Doméstica, while Brandon Foster watches Joss Whedon’s surprising adaptation of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.

Viola (Matías Pineiro)

Viola (Matías Pineiro)

Buenos Aires is a handkerchief — according to a local saying — and anywhere you go, people from your past, present and perhaps even future have a way of appearing before you. In Viola, a whimsical twist on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, the stories of several young women are interwoven on this handkerchief. The film opens on a group of actresses performing a Shakespearean composite (a very porteño undertaking). They have reached the scene from Twelfth Night where the eunuch Cesario approaches Olivia to tell her of Orsino’s unfailing love for her. Backstage, the actresses talk incessantly, mainly of love, with a driving desire to get to the very bottom of everyone else’s true motives and intents. Together they devise a plot to get Sabrina (Olivia in the play) to fall back in love with her boyfriend Agustín; Luciana will seduce Sabrina to make her realise that she’s actually in love with him. Suddenly we shift to Viola, a porteña not to be confused with the character of the same name in Twelfth Night; her boyfriend is asking her what she would do if escaping from a situation that seems somehow tied to Luciana’s seduction of Sabrina. Or is it? We follow Viola onto the city streets where her path delivering pirated DVDs will now actually cross with that of the conspiring actresses from the play. Though everything doesn’t come off exactly as you expect, all in Viola seems to be well that ends well. Funny, unconventional and incredibly porteño, Matías Piñeiro’s new film is definitely one of the top Argentine picks in this year’s BAFICI.

Doméstica (Gabriel Mascaro)

Doméstica (Gabriel Mascaro)

In the Brazilian documentary Doméstica, seven teenagers took hold of video cameras and filmed their housemaids for a week. The homes are widely different, from upper-middle class to one so modest that the maid washes dishes in a plastic washbasin on the red earth outside the house. Many of these housemaids have been working since they were pre-teens and almost all have known misfortune. They plod through their respective household, stretching out on the floor to clean beneath a sofa or cheerily scrubbing a pot; the radio with its catchy love songs is a constant companion. Many of these women (and one man!) have relationships with the family they work for that date back to before they were born. In one home, we see pictures of the senhora and the maid holding hands together as children; in another, the maid mops the floor while the senhora rocks the maid’s baby, who also lives with them. One particularly tender moment is when the camera creeps into a living room at midnight to reveal the home’s corpulent housemaid on her knees with her head resting on the sofa, fast asleep. From the perspective of Argentina, where the line between family and domestic help is etched in stone, these scenes can be bewildering, along with the painstaking sincerity of almost everyone interviewed. Although the film sometimes falls short in cinematographic terms (a bumpy camera, oddly angled shots), the poignant stories of these maids and the affection of the young directors for their subjects make this a captivating watch.

Los Posibles (Santiago Mitre, Juan Onofri Barbato)

Los Posibles (Santiago Mitre, Juan Onofri Barbato)

A young man stands with his rippled back to the camera. He is resting on a balcony, looking out into a courtyard. It seems like the opening scene for a Pablo Trapero movie, tension in the poor urbanised strip surrounding the city of Buenos Aires. The man is pensive; his body is loaded with kinetic energy, as if he were planning something terrible. He makes the decision and moves, and the camera follows him through the city, where he stops before a grey cement wall. There are other men positioned nearby in the dark. The atmosphere is mysterious, tense. Why are they all here? These are hard bodies with scratchy black ink tattoos, piercings, suspicious looks in their eyes. Yet suddenly they begin move and this becomes a choreography: a performance of masculinity. The dance shifts from homoerotic to nearly violent as their figures come together and tear apart on the dark stage. There is virtually no dialogue, only the dance, and the sudden shift back to reality—when this “rehearsal” ends—is almost troubling, as if you hoped it would never end. There is a story behind the film: these young men are part of a dance troupe formed at Casa La Salle, a social assistance center in Gonzalez Catán, where the choreographer Onofri Barbato proposed dance as a way of helping troubled youth. The film never tells you this, and doesn’t really need to: watching these young man transform their tumultuous lives into dance is more than enough.

Much Ado About Nothing (Joss Whedon)

Much Ado About Nothing (Joss Whedon)

Just off the huge success of Marvel’s The Avengers, it might surprise some that the next project of geek god Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and co-writer of Toy Story, would be a black-and-white Shakespeare adaptation. But, before long, it should be obvious to the viewers, be they faithful Whedonites or casual observers of The Cabin in the Woods, that the renowned Whedon wit is fully intact, and compatible with Shakespearean dialogue. The film is set in posh modernity, but, while iPods and smartphones pop up here and there, it’s not as reliant on this in the gimmicky kind of way that Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 adaptation of Romeo and Juliet was. For much of the movie, it’s hardly even apparent that the setting is contemporary, except that the characters are dressed in dapper suits and dresses instead of the garb of Shakespearean times. The wardrobe, as well as the occasional anachronisms such as an indelible shot of Claudio donned in a snorkeling mask, accent Shakespeare’s work rather than distract from it. The Bard’s legendary comedy shines through via the ensemble’s stellar delivery, yet Whedon manages to make his own jokes as well with slapstick humor, spot-on cinematography and a tongue-in-cheek awareness of modern connotations of Shakespearian wordings. The film’s 107 minutes fly by thanks to its phenomenal pacing, and Whedon, who was rumored to be in town by Argentine tweeters, creates a fresh interpretation that manages to respect the original work yet feel like a classic in its own right.

Animated film might not be the first thing that springs to mind when someone asks you about Argentina’s achievements: tango – yes, animated film – no. It might surprise you to know, then, that the first ever feature-length animated film was in fact produced in 1917 by a young Italian émigré to Argentina.

In the canon of cinematic achievements, with particular regard to animated film, Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, released in 1937, is most often cited and indeed regarded as the father of feature-length animated film. Quirino Cristiani, however, beat Disney to it by twenty years with ‘El apóstol’ (The Apostle). A further six years prior to the release of Snow White, Cristiani had pulled off yet another coup; his second feature-length animated film, Peludópolis in 1931, was the first of its kind to use synchronised sound.

El Mono Relojero by Quirino Cristiani

In an unfortunate turn of events, both films were destroyed in fires, which may help to explain why this ground-breaking pioneer in cinema has all but fallen into oblivion. Yet for a new generation of Argentine animators driving a rebirth of the genre, Cristiani’s contribution remains significant.

Origins

Quirino Cristiani was born on the 2nd July, 1896, in the Italian village of Santa Guiletta. His father, Luigi Cristiani was a municipal clerk and his mother, Adele Martinotti, was a dedicated housewife and mother of four sons. When his father lost his job in 1900, he decided the family should relocate to the Americas, and they settled in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires. Growing up in the old port city, the young Cristiani came to see himself primarily as a porteño and secondly as an Argentine. The buzzing capital city was at the centre of the country’s changing political landscape, and would provide Cristiani with the inspiration for ‘El apóstol’.

The national elections of 1916 brought about an end to the longstanding traditional ruling Conservative party, and ushered in a new political era under the Radical Party leader of Hipólito Yrigoyen. His presidency was accompanied by a widespread reforms and unprecedented freedom of the press. Politics, a wildly popular topic, spawned numerous cartoons and satirical comic strips.

At his time, Cristiani had found work at various newspapers and put his graphics skills to practice creating skillful newsreels and comic strips. The sharp wit and insight he displayed as a newspaper illustrator would mark the tone in his revolutionary feature length animated film.

The new and freer press soon turned against the president and he became the target of their political satire which mockingly referred to him as “el peludo” or “unkempt” in reference to both his appearance and political style, accusing him of having replaced one set of corrupt leaders with another. This regulatory backlash would later inform Cristiani’s films, as would the prolific influence of another Italian émigré, Federico Valle.

A cameraman and documentary filmmaker, Valle had worked for the likes of Lumière Brothers and the Urban Trading Co and is thought to be the first person to employ aerial cinematography in Rome in 1909. Although he worked as a producer in Argentina, his main passion was for newsreel. The two men, prompted by the novel culture of political satire and inflected with compatible passions, decided to team up, Valle including Cristiani’s cartoons in his newsreel.

Valle was the first to produce a weekly Argentine newsreel, called “Actualidades Valle” which would debut in cinemas every Thursday. Although Valle was not overly interested in politics and satire, a savvy director, he came to realise their importance to the Argentine population and hired Cristiani to come up with a satirical political cartoon strip to be featured at the end of each of his newsreels. To help the young artist make the transition from static images to the rubric of cinema, Valle leant him a book by French cartoonist and animator, Emile Cohl, dubbed “Les Allumettes Animées” (1908).

In response, Cristiani came up with a revolutionary new technique: cardboard cut outs. Although by today’s standards this may seem primitive, it was a technique that was so successful that he later patented it. His studio was also anything but glamorous. The terrace of his Buenos Aires house was converted into his workspace from which he shot the film frame by frame using only the sun as his light source.

Following the success of Cristiani’s contribution to Valle’s newsreels and the highly positive reaction of the audiences, the duo set about undertaking an even more ambitious project: the first ever feature length animated film, whose lead character would be none other than the president himself.

El Apóstol (1917)

A still from‘El Apóstol’

The film was played for the first time in cinemas in November 1917 and was met with critical acclaim. The newspaper Crítica described it as “magnificent”, whilst La Razon corroborated, heralding it as, “a graphic work that reveals enormous labour, patience and even genius”.

A political satire, the film depicted the new president, Hipólito Yrigoyen, aspiring to bring about morality to a sin-ridden and corrupt Buenos Aires. To do so, Yrigoyen ascends into the heavens where the Roman God Jupiter lends him some thunderbolts to achieve his aims. Thunderbolts rain down on the city from above in an attempt to purge it of evil.

The work, which took a year to complete, lasted an hour and ten minutes and is said to have been made up of a total of 58,000 drawings (or frames). Unfortunately for Cristiani however, Valle’s hiring of the famous humorous cartoonist Diógenes Taborda, also known as “El Mono” (the monkey) meant that he received very little, if any, credit for the film. The press releases and credits recognised Taborda over Cristiani, failing to properly knowledge Cristiani’s overwhelming contribution to cinema. Thus the producer and not the creator was written into the annals of cinematic history.

Peludópolis (1931)

Following the reelection of Hipólito Yrigoyen in 1928, Cristiani set about a third and influential undertaking to create a feature-length animated film with sound. As with his first film, he once again found political satire as an appropriate vehicle for his film.

The title of the film was a thinly veiled reference to the president’s nickname “el peludo”, and it was set in the Kingdom of an increasingly senile, weakening, and corrupt president. A year before its premier on September 16th, 1931, however, the country was shaken by a military coup d’état.

The film was not a success. Initially envisaged as biting political satire, the events of the military coup rendered his film inappropriate: audiences were not disposed to laugh at such a highly charged, sensitive subject despite Cristiani’s revisions of the film to please both the audience and the new de facto regime.

Tellingly, the film’s economic failure almost bankrupted the now 35 year-old Cristiani. Essentially, he was unable to compete with the likes of Walt Disney with its colour graphics, technical precision, and commercial success.

Commercial failings aside, the film once more made use of articulated characters cut out from cardboard, a technique he had now perfected, and included, most importantly, sound. He used a disk recording system to which the dialogue was saved, and even included a few songs.

The Italian émigré may not have achieved the dizzying heights of success that Disney reached (he was even offered a job by the man himself in 1941 but turned it down), but his contributions to cinema nevertheless assure him a well deserved place in the cinematic landscape of the past upon which many successful venture have been launched.

Looking Forward

With two firsts under its belt, the question now being considered is whether or not Argentina, and indeed Latin America in general, could become a leading producer of animated film, enough so perhaps to rival the likes of Pixar?

In the 2012 International Festival of New Latin American Cinema, of 27 works in the animated film section, seven were Argentine. Animated film as a genre has developed exponentially since its humble origins in the Italian artisan, and the film fodder has moved from heavyweight political satire to light-hearted children’s entertainment.

Weta Digitial, the New Zealand studio of celebrated filmmaker Peter Jackson, is the accepted gold standard in visual effects and film production, and one to which Argentina’s own national treasure, director Juan José Campanella, aspires to.

His upcoming 3D blockbuster, “Metegol”, the first of its kind to be produced in Latin America, hopes to bring the region’s animated cinema to international audiences, following in the footsteps of his incredibly successful 2010 film, ‘El secreto de sus ojos’, which won an Academy Award for best foreign film.

Metegol

According to critically-acclaimed Argentine animated film producer Juan Pablo Zamarella, the current upturn in animated film production is due in part to the fact that it is moderately cheaper to produce such films here, and, because, in his words, “Argentines are like Victorinox (the Swiss Army knife): they can do animation, they can edit, they can produce. It’s very common which is generally surprising to Americans and Europeans, and for that reason we are highly valued”.

These unique skills have translated into a “spontaneous phenomenon” whereby there are more and more people producing animated films despite the high cost and noticeable lack of state funding. Zaramella explains that, “at the moment, there are lots of people producing short films who are wining lots of awards at international film festivals”. A case in point, his most recent short film, “Luminaris” has, to date, won over 200 international prizes and was pre-selected for the Oscars.

His success, and indeed the success of his fellow animators, has contributed to the boom. “It is very unlikely that a director will want to risk investing in animated film – unless he sees that it is successful”, says Zaramella. This self-reinforcing concept is fuelling the growth a new generation of hopefuls.

Campanella’s foray into animated film marks an important step in the development and expansion of animated film for Argentina, and indeed the international community it hopes to reach. ‘Becho lo Bianco’, a member of the CanCan Club and one of its principal animators, is currently working on the films credits. He enthuses that that films has, “a very high level of animation” and that Campanella “knows how to tell a story and how to tell it well”. It’s success, believes Zaramella, would “set a precedent for Argentina”.

Another celebrated animator, Santiago Bou, whose 2008 short film ‘The Employment’ won over 100 international awards and made it into 190 film festival official selections, agreed that ‘Metegol’ might help to raise Argentina’s profile, but offered a more philosophical point of view.

To his mind, despite being a “great step for the country, the film emulates “a market which is not its own”. This, he believes, may mean that it might not succeed in a international context, since it is “conforming to a code which is not its own – its Pixar’s”.

Perhaps the question then ought not to be will Argentina be able to rival the success of Pixar, but whether, as Bou suggests, it will be able to find “its own language” for a genre that started here almost a century ago.

Film writer Wendy Gosselin continues her coverage of this year’s BAFICI festival with reviews of three Argentine films: El Loro y el Cisne, El Olimpo Vacío, and Antonio Gil. Click the titles of each for more information about future showings and tickets.

El loro y el cisne (photo: BAFICI)

Right from the start, Moguillansky’s new moview leaves us whirling like the dancers on screen: what kind of film is this, exactly? A film within a film? A romantic comedy? Or Swan Lake remade with an older, pregnant Odette and a brooding Prince Siegfried? The film’s ostensible hero is El Loro, the quiet soundman for a documentary film crew who is wallowing in a worn-out relationship. He not only plays a soundman — he also is the soundman, perpetually gripping a big fuzzy microphone, even when scenes turn emotional. The crew has been hired to shoot dance troupes in Argentina — “It’s for Chicago, Miami…USA!” the director explains to a perplexed ballet man. The scenes where the documentary team films the dance troupes are truly delightful – the film guys poke each other and whisper about the dancers while the dancers study old recordings on a television screen and then assiduously replicate the steps. This humour is particularly Argentine, the passion for one’s art combined with the check-out-her-ass attitude. The search for new manifestations of dance soon leads the film crew to the Krapp group. This makeshift bunch does contemporary things indeed — “It’s like being an atheist—only with yourself,” explains Luciana, our swan, who soon fall for our soundman. So it’s a love story! Up until this point, the film is quirky, entertaining and solid — and then the documentary film ends and the real film slips out of control. Just as El Loro decides he’s in love, Lu disappears. When she returns, she’s pregnant. Undaunted, El Loro declares his love and Luciana runs off again. We return to the initial, exciting question that the film posed: what kind of film is this? Only as it creeps slowly towards the two-hour mark, it becomes apparent that not even Moguillansky himself knows the answer.

El Olimpo Vacío (Pablo Racioppi/Carolina Azzi)

This political documentary introduces us to writer and philosopher Juan José Sebreli and his book ‘Comediantes y mártires’, where he takes on four of Argentina’s most beloved icons: Gardel, Evita, el Che and Maradona. According to Sebreli, the mystique of each of these figures was created by a group with its own particular interest in transforming person into legend. Sebreli’s theory doesn’t sit well with many — “I learned to love the booing,” he clarifies early on — and the directors do an extraordinary job of countering Sebreli’s arguments with those of experts in their respective fields (tango historian José Gobello, Peronist politican Antonio Cafiero, historian Osvaldo Bayer and sports broadcaster Víctor Hugo Morales). The film also makes excellent use of archive material to present each of the four icons—news casts, photographs, radio broadcasts and the repetition ad infinitum of their images on everything from city walls to necklaces. The four segments (one for each icon) are informative and dotted with scenes of Sebreli meeting with friends, doing interviews and reiterating his points on camera.

A fifth section presents the icons that Argentina chose to represent the nation when invited to be the guest country at the 2010 Frankfurt Book Fair: coincidentally (or otherwise), President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner initially opted for the same four figures that Sebreli wrestles with in his book. The film continues with yet another section on unanimity in which Sebreli argues that the dangerous consent forged during the ’78 World Cup is what paved the way for the Malvinas War in 1982. Although these last two segments are also filled with fascinating facts and Sebreli’s honed insight, the thread of the documentary narrative starts to run thin. Nevertheless, this film is a must for anyone with a visceral relationship to Argentina.

Antonio Gil (photo: BAFICI)

According to some, he was a recruit who refused to fight; for others, he was a common thief, a local Robin Hood, a case of mistaken identity. This documentary is about “El Gauchito” Gil, one of the most colourful of Argentina’s popular saints. Like his counterparts across Latin America, El Gauchito is a figure who is not officially recognised by the Catholic Church, but to whom miracles are attributed. Gil’s sanctuary is located at the spot where he was murdered in the town of Mercedes, Corrientes. On 8th January, the day commemorating his death, followers wait hours in line for the chance to approach his altar, light a candle, ask for a miracle or thank him for fulfilling their request. This is fertile terrain for documentary filmmaking and a slow tracking shot reveals the endless line of Gauchito followers, some dressed in red, others clutching statues of their protector. There are splendid shots of the men and women transporting the red cross to the sanctuary on horseback, trotting towards camera; their grave, earnest faces hail from times past. Dansker, however, overuses the tracking shot, lingering for too long on the food stands, campsites and makeshift constructions on the garbage-strewn lands around the sanctuary. The people constantly stopping to wave and ham it up for the camera also grows tiring. Danker’s informants provide voiceovers to these images, offering their personalised accounts of ‘The Gaucho’s “true story.” The stories vary, but all concur that he suffered a bloody, merciless death. The voices of the people who worship ‘The Gaucho’ are valid sources, but Dansker misses the mark by never showing her informants onscreen. Thus, although Antonio Gil provides some insight into popular practices of worship, it would have benefited from a more dynamic, compelling film narrative.

Forty years ago Argentina’s movie industry was muzzled by a paranoid military junta, forcing some of the most promising film makers of a generation underground or into exile. Even when democracy returned to the country in the 1980s, giving rise to some highly acclaimed films like ‘La historia official’, a lack of demand for foreign language films and the apparent refusal of much of the English-speaking world to read subtitles prevented them from gaining mainstream traction outside of Latin America.

Nicolás Carreras’ ‘El camino del vino’

Fast-forward to Spring 2013 and not only is London hosting its second Argentine Film Festival (AFF), but tickets are selling out faster than freshly-baked churros on a feriado. The programme features the brightest talent to emerge from Argentina’s film studios in the past few years with titles including Hernán Belón’s documentary ‘Sofia cumple 100 años’ and Nicolás Carreras’ ‘El camino del vino’.

“I knew that there were some Argentine films being seen in London, but I thought given the quality and amount being produced right now that it would be great to give people an chance to see more of them,” says festival founder Sofia Serbin de Skalon, speaking in London ahead of the event. “I wanted audiences to be able to gain a real insight into the country, something that went beyond the traditional images of tango and so on.”

Running at the same time as indie film festival BACIFI in Buenos Aires, AFF is aimed at pulling Argentine films into the mainstream and digging deeper than well-worn images of Malbec and Maradona most associated with the country.

De Skalon says she had no idea how successful the festival would prove to be when she set out, but with this year’s event now spun across three cinemas in Brixton, the West End, and Hackney, it looks like the gamble has paid off. So how did Argentine cinema finally gain currency outside of Latin America?

El Secreto de sus ojos took the world by storm.

Tipping Point: El Secreto de Sus Ojos

Latin American films have gradually been gaining traction over the past few years, with high-profile movies such a Walter Salles’ ‘Motorcycle Diaries’ and Fernando Meirelles’ ‘City of God’ helping pave the way for Spanish language movies in non-Spanish speaking countries.

But many see the Oscar win for ‘El secreto de sus ojos’ (The Secret in their Eyes) in 2010 as the real turning point in Argentine cinema, as Hollywood shone the international spotlight on the country’s rich film heritage. Though by no means the country’s first big prize – Argentina has claimed 14 Goyas for Spanish Language Films to date including Pablo Trapero’s ‘Mundo grúa’ in 1999, and became the first Latin American country to win an academy award with best foreign title for ‘La historia official’ in 1985 – it was the surprise box office popularity of ‘El secreto’ outside Spanish-speaking regions that proved a decisive moment for the industry in terms of winning over international audiences.

“Directors like Pablo Trapero and Lucrecia Martel were already making waves on the international festival circuit, says de Skalon, “but ‘El secreto’ was a commercial success and got Argentine cinema attention with mainstream audiences.”

Uptake has been further boosted by growing demand for foreign-language films and TV content generally in countries like the UK over the past few years; highlighted by a glut of programmes emerging from the continent, including Denmark’s ‘The Killing’, and ‘The Bridge’ and France’s ‘Spiral’ – which all smashed expectations and pulled in huge TV audiences on the BBC despite being sub-titled.

“People are connecting with foreign films right now because they´re looking for real stories, films that talk to them in some way,” says de Skalon. “Argentine cinema, like Argentine society itself, is so diverse with so many influences that there is a lot of scope for telling a range of different stories.”

New Faces of Argentine Cinema

AFF is designed to be a spring board to the film makers of the future, giving them a platform on which to showcase their work and mature their work. The festival is featuring a string of short films from up-and-coming directors designed to open a window to the creativity coming out of its studios at the moment.

“The main thing is the emergence of a new group of directors, of which Pablo Trapero is perhaps the best known outside Argentina – who added a new dimension to Argentine film, telling stories of the realities of everyday life and finding new and innovative ways to do so, often with very limited resources,” says de Skalon.

The shorts include ‘Noelia’, a 15 minute film from Maria Alché about a girl turned out of her home, who walks the streets of Buenos Aires building an imaginary cityscape around her. Another is ‘Yeguas y cotorras’ from Natalia Garagiola – slightly longer at 28 minutes – painting a picture of the young Argentine aristocracy, featuring a young woman meeting her best friends at her parents’ country pile the night before her wedding. ‘Pude ver un puma’ is from Teddy Williams, telling the story of young friends playing on the rooftops of the city, who are suddenly plunged into the heart of the earth.

So who else should we be looking out for? “There’s so many!” says Professor Maria Delgado, who helped programme AFF. “Delfina Castagnino, Gonzalo Tobal, Gustavo Taretto – who won audiences over at the festival last year with his debut feature ‘Medianeras’.

The comedy ‘El hombre de al lado” (The man next door).

“This year we have one of his earlier shorts in the festival but we have another remarkable debut by Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat in the black comedy ‘El hombre de al lado’ (The Man Next Door). And our closing night film is Dario Nardi’s exquisite ‘Las mariposas de Sadourni’ (Sadourni’s Butterflies). He’s a name to watch!”

El Cine Argentino

The festival is designed to highlight the broad sweep of Argentine cinema, which has its roots in 19th century silent film and has chronicled the more than a century of its heartache and troubles on the big screen, as well as holding a lens up to the everyday life of its people.

“What distinguishes Argentine cinema? Its ingenuity and craftsmanship,” says Delgado. “Argentine cinema knows how to make a little money go a long way. And its actors: at times their on-screen conversations are just exhilarating. The cross-fertilisation between stage and screen in Buenos Aires has also been seen in the quality of the work as actors, writers and directors move between stage and screen.

“We hope that it will give audiences an opportunity to see the breadth of work coming from Argentina – everything from a Jewish comedy to a stylish thriller,” concludes Delgado. “It will feature established names and new talent so we hope that it will offer the industry and film critics in the UK a chance to engage with a broader range of work beyond the established names.”

The Argentine Film Festival in London runs from 17th-21st April. Visit the website for more information.

Feeling a little overwhelmed by the BAFICI catalogue and not sure where to start? Here’s a list of ten films that you may still be in time to get tickets for — but move quickly, as most of the films on this list are sure to sell out!

Berberian Sound Studio (courtesy of BAFICI)

Berberian Sound Studio (Peter Strickland). At an Italian sound studio in the 1970s, the timid, unimposing sound engineer Gilderoy has just arrived to do the sound for a horror film. Strickland pays homage to the low-budget giallo horror flicks so popular in Italy in the 1970s in this wacky film where the line between life and art begins to blur.

O som au redor (Kleber Mendonça Filho). There is one thing that the well-to-do across Latin America share: a constant sense of danger, the threat of being robbed or violated. This is seemingly the focus of this film, which follows two security guards working in an affluent neighborhood in Recife, Brazil. The sounds are as constant as the threats — tapping, barking, the scratching of metal, water running — in an atmosphere wrought with paranoia.

El loro y el cisne (courtesy of BAFICI)

El Loro y El Cisne (Alejo Moguillansky). This young Argentina director is back at BAFICI after his 2009 film Castro won the best film award in the Argentine competition. This fictional film is about the making of a documentary about a dance troupe, exploring work, creativity and love. Another must-see in this year’s Argentine competition.

Centro Histórico (Aki Kaurismäki, Pedro Costa, Victor Erice, Manoel de Oliveira). The Portuguese city of Guimaraes commissioned four directors to make this film to celebrate its selection as a European Culture Capital. These four contemporary filmmakers engage the city in various ways, telling the story of a man working in a bar, a textile factor that has closed, tourists before an imposing bronze statue of Portugal’s first king, and the 1974 revolution.

Los Posibles (Santiago Mitre, Juan Onofri Barbato). This is Santiago Mitre’s second film after his stunning entry in Argentine cinema with ‘El Estudiante’, a sort of political thriller based on the dirty dealings of student politics at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. Los Posibles is a film adaption of the dance show created by choreographer Juan Onofri Barbato.

Ma Belle Gosse (Shalimar Preuss). In this impressive film debut by Shalimar Preuss, a teenage girl at the beach for a family vacation hides a secret: she has an epistolary relationship with a prison inmate. The film took the French film award at the Belfort International Film Festival in 2012 and promises to be a favorite at this year’s festival.

Call Girl (courtesy of BAFICI)

Call Girl (Mikael Marcimain). Based on a political scandal that occurred in Sweden in the 1970s, this film tells the story of two adolescents living in a home for girls who are recruited as prostitutes. As it progresses, they work their way up to sleeping with some of the top Swedish politicians. Macrimain offers a faithful recreation of the 1970s with its disco music, tacky colours, and general free-for-all.

The Great North Korean Picture Show (Lynn Lee, James Leong). This film is on Artistic Director Marcelo Panozzo’s list of the top ten films to see at BAFICI 2013. It offers an inside look at the only film school of North Korea, where aspiring filmmakers learn not only technique but also how to shape the national imaginary. A unique look at the creation and perpetuation of propaganda.

Viola (courtesy of BAFICI)

Viola (Matías Piñeiro). Tickets are going fast for this film by yet another young Argentine director, Matías Piñeiro, who won an award at last year’s Buenos Aires Lab. Viola is a delivery girl who brings pirated DVDs from Metropolis, the company she has started with her boyfriend. The film follows her down the streets of Buenos Aires and leads us into Viola‘s world.

Hahaha (or any of the fifteen films by Hong Sang Soo). This BAFICI offers a retrospective of all fifteen films by the magnificent Korean director whose off-kilter films explore the awkward way we communicate with friends, lovers, strangers, the people we meet. The retrospective goes from the first film that made a name for Sang Soo in film festivals worldwide, ‘The Day a Pig Fell into a Well’, to his latest film, ‘Nobody’s Daughter Haewon’.

Just a reminder, tickets are on sale either online (with a credit card) at www.buenosaires.gob.ar/festivales, at the Village Recoleta Mall (Vicente López and Junín, 4th floor, every day from 10AM to 8PM) or at Casa de la Culture (Av. de Mayo 575, Monday through Friday from 10AM-8PM). Check back here at the Independent for film reviews once the festival kicks off!

Leandro Listorti has what many would consider a dream job: he is one of the five members of the programming team for the BAFICI film festival. Wendy Gosselin caught up with him at the launch event for this year’s festival to discuss how he got one of the coveted programmer posts, how the film selection process works, and what not to miss in this year’s festival.

Leandro Listorti (Photo by Simon Guerra)

Tell me how you got into this—how you became a BAFICI programmer?

My first job was working as a film projector operator. So when I first started working for BAFICI, I was actually doing the technical work—making sure the copies were good to go, going over the film formats, etc. And later, when Fernando Martín Peña became the Artistic Director of the festival at the end of 2004, he put together a team and asked me to be a part of it. Then Sergio Wolff replaced Peña and this year, Marcelo Panozzo has replaced Wolff, and I’ve been a programmer the whole time.

How did you become a film projector operator? Did you study film?

Yes, I studied film and I also make film—experimental films, documentary films. As a film projector operator, well, I was young, looking for work, and I loved film. So I took a class, I got a credential, and I started working.

There is something very romantic about being a film projector operator and seeing the screen from that little box way up high… Do operators actually watch the movies from the projection booth?

Well, I worked in all sorts of venues, from shopping malls to the MALBA. At MALBA, there’s only one projector so you can actually sit down and watch the film, but at the malls, there can be as many as eight. Now, the mall’s projection system runs pretty much on its own, but things can go wrong, so you have to be on top of things. In the malls, you see movies in bits and pieces, in fragments, but luckily I never stopped loving film. I watched whenever I could.

What about the film formats? Is everything digital now?

When I first started working as a film projector operator, almost all the films were either in 16mm or 35mm. And now more than half are digital. Very few are still actually film. However, since BAFICI does a lot of retrospectives and shows a lot of old flicks, there are a good number of actual films shown in the festival—I mean, films shot on 16 or 35 mm. This year, for example, there’s the retrospective on Argentine director Adolfo Aristarain, whose films were all originally shot and screened in 35mm. There’s also the films in the Austrian Avant-Garde section, a very special section that includes ten programmes of experimental Austrian films dating back to the 1960s, many of which were also shot on 16mm. So because of the nature of this festival, there are always a lot of actual films being shown. But in terms of the films that are being produced nowadays, 80 or 90% are digital. So BAFICI has also been forced to adapt.

When did the work begin for this year’s BAFICI?

Practically as soon as last year’s BAFICI ended. As soon as the festival ends each year, we take a few days off and then we’re back at it. As a matter of fact, we are sort of already working on next year’s festival—considering things that we were not able to include this year due to time or space constraints. So Cannes is in May, and that’s when we start working on next year’s festival. Another strong point of the BAFICI is Argentine film, and the work in that area happens year-round. We are in touch with producers, directors and even actors to find out what is being produced, who received funding for their film, etc. That work is continuous. We are always looking into it.

Leandro Listorti (Photo by Simon Guerra)

Interesting you mention that, because BAFICI is actually renowned for showcasing Argentine film, isn’t it?

Yes, we particularly emphasise Latin American film and above all, Argentine film. Many people in fact come to BAFICI to see the Argentine films in the festival and for this reason, Argentine directors vie to get their films included in the programme. This year, to celebrate BAFICI’s 15th anniversary, we asked the local branch of FIPRESCI (the International Federation of Film Critics) to select 15 contemporary Argentine films by different directors to include in the festival, and these have been included in their own section. It’s a great chance to see some recent “classics” like Mundo Grúa by Pablo Trapero.

Tell me how a film gets chosen for the festival.

There are many ways a film can be selected for the festival. In terms of Argentine film, we often find out about a film that is being made, keep track of production, and then include it in the programming. Then there are films that we like from other festivals and decide to invite for screening at BAFICI. And then, of course, there are the films that get sent to us. After fifteen years, BAFICI has become a festival that attracts filmmakers from all over the world, so we receive films year round, especially in summer here, when the festival is approaching. So we work the most when everyone else is on vacation.

And you also receive an overwhelming number of short films, is that correct? Marcelo Panozzo mentioned having received around 600 short films.

Yes, that’s correct, which is why for several years now, we only accept short films by Argentine directors. The reason is that it would be too much to open it up to international filmmakers—we simply wouldn’t be able to handle the quantity. This year was especially prolific in terms of shorts. We watched 560 short films. It was a lot of work.

So a short films comes in and you get assigned to watch it. Then what happens? What’s the next step?

In terms of Argentine productions, all of the programmers try to watch all the films. So I see the film, I take some notes, and then I send it to the other programmers so they can see it. Usually by June, we are having regular meetings to swap materials and discuss what we’ve seen. As the festival approaches, we are in touch via email and send each other material on Google docs to keep everyone informed of what’s going on and to keep the films circulating. And everyone takes a stance on what they would like to see in the festival. That’s how it works in a nutshell. A lot of talking, a lot of debate.

And then who makes the final decision?

All of us work together. There is a lot of arguing, of course, but eventually we reach an agreement. There are five of us working on this, four programmers—Violeta Bava, Javier Porta Fouz, Fran Gayo and I—plus Artistic Director Marcelo Panozzo. All of us have experience writing, directing or producing film. Towards the end of the year, we start stopping by each other’s houses to drop off material. There is a lot of work that takes place outside the office. Then by February, March, we have to do the catalogue, the schedule. It’s a 24-hour-a-day job for a while. Then after months of this reclusive work of watching movies by yourself, the festival comes and you’re talking with all these people, meeting the directors!

Any films you would especially recommend this BAFICI?

I really recommend the Austrian Avant-Garde Section. It’s exactly the kind of experimental cinema I enjoy the most, and it’s rare to be able to see it in theaters, on the big screen. There is another programme, Britannia B Side, which includes films produced by the British agency for the arts, Lux. These are mainly documentary films and there are some real gems in the different programmes. Another section to watch is avant-garde and genre—there are many great films in that section as well. There is a lot to see.

Just one last question—do you ever walk out on a film?

I almost never get up and actually leave the theater. I generally stick around to see if a bad film has some redeeming value. When I do choose to leave the theater, it’s usually at a film festival, just because there is a chance that you got stuck seeing the wrong film and you may be missing a masterpiece.

BAFICI 2013 kicks off this Wednesday, April 10th. Stay tuned to the Independent for tips on what to see and do at this year’s festival!

Tesis Sobre Un Homicidio is a thriller that revolves around law professor Roberto Bermúdez (Ricardo Darín), Gonzalo Ruiz Cordera, one of his students (Alberto Ammann), and Laura Di Natale, the sister (Calu Rivero) of a woman brutally murdered within view of Bermúdez’s classroom.

Alberto Ammann (as Gonzalo Ruiz Cordera) and Ricardo Darín (as Roberto Bermúdez) walk outside the Facultad de Derecho

Bermúdez specialises in criminal law, and what at first seems professional curiosity in the Di Natale case quickly becomes an obsession with getting to the bottom of the grisly murder that took place at his workplace. At the same time his relationship with both Ruiz Cordera and Di Natale becomes increasingly ambiguous and strained.

As he accumulates clues and confirms suspicions, Bermúdez becomes convinced that his student is a psychopathic serial killer and that he is behind the murder. However the mental burnout provoked by a case to which he shouldn’t be meddling with hints that his own sanity could also be on the line. In the meantime Ruiz Cordera choses to write his study paper on the Di Natale case, with both teacher and student developing their own thesis as to who is behind the killing.

Calu Rivero (as Laura Di Natale) and Ricardo Darín (as Roberto Bermúdez)

The film, directed by Hernán Goldfrid, known for Musica De Espera, his debut film as director, is technically excellent. The cinematography is original from the very first shot and contrasts the atmosphere of a cold classic thriller with the high paced and half-demented obsession that engulfs the main character.

When Bermúdez goes looking for Di Natale in an underground club in the basement of a factory in Buenos Aires, director of photography Rodrigo Pulpeiro’s work shines at its best. The surrealistic setting in which the protagonist desperately tries to reach Di Natale, with bodies dropping from the ceiling and the special effects of the show surrounding him, increases the tension to almost unbearable levels.

It is a shame that one of the few drawbacks that Tesis Sobre Un Homicido has comes in an equally crucial scene. When finally Bermúdez admits to the sister’s victim his suspicions on who murdered her sister, Goldfrid fails to deliver the climax that the scene implies.

Although it is hard to pinpoint what point makes the scene feel slightlty off, the sense of anti-climax is palpable. The script itself isn’t at its best and Calu Rivero’s delivery of it is rather poor.

This blip is even more surprising considering the general level of her performance in the film. Rivero’s dazzling looks are well matched by her performance in her first full-length film. Rivero went from being cast as the villain in popular TV show Patito Feo in 2007 to the top of the national show business scene.

She was then called to model for top brands and then became the face of Poncho’s hit music video Please Me. Her first appearance on the big screen is promising and she will most likely become a regular figure of the Argentine film scene.

Calu Rivero (as Laura Di Natale)

Her on-screen partner is at the other side of the spectrum in terms of film careers in Argentina. Darín proves once again why he is the most recognisable and revered actor currently working in the industry.

In Tesis Sobre Un Homicido, Darín takes on the role of obsessive investigator in which he excelled in the Oscar-winning El Secreto De Sus Ojos. However his latest character has an added, darker dimension compared to that performance. This dark side takes on a protagonist role as the film hinges on the existential question Bermúdez faces; at which point does his investigation become a personal struggle for his own salvation rather than a fight for justice?

‘Infancia Clandestina’ (Clandestine Childhood) is a new film by Argentine director Benjamín Ávila. Earlier this month, it was submitted by Argentine Academy for Cinematographic Arts and Sciences to represent the country in the category of Best Foreign Film at the 2013 Academy Awards.

Natalia Oreiro stars in 'Infancia Clandestina'

Drawing on his own childhood experiences and those of co-writer Marcelo Muller, Ávila’s film tells the tale of a family of guerrilla fighters, struggling against the military dictatorship led by Jorge Rafael Videla in the late 1970s. The film is based on true events and is partly autobiographical: Ávila’s own mother was a resistance fighter before becoming one among thousands of “desaparecidos”.

Videla was in power in Argentina between 1976 and 1981. His authoritarian regime presided over what is commonly known as the “Dirty War”. It was, however, a war merely by name and nothing else, instead comprising of mass state-sponsored kidnappings, murders and disappearances of anyone who opposed the military junta. Among the pockets of resistance fighting the dictatorship were the Montoneros, a Marxist guerrilla organisation that emerged in the late 1960s and was heavily targeted by the military.

The film is shot through the eyes of Juan (Teo Gutiérrez Moreno), the 12-year-old son of two important Montonero leaders: Daniel (César Troncoso) and Cristina (Natalia Oreiro). The family are forced to flee to communist Cuba when things become unsafe for them in their homeland, but in 1979 they decide to return after two years in exile to once again take up their guerrilla struggle.

It is at this point in the story that the film begins and the meaning behind its title becomes clear. In order not to arouse suspicion on return to Argentina, all family members must take on false identities. Juan’s new passport declares that he is from Córdoba and will now be known as Ernesto. Ávila opts to focus on the humorous side of this otherwise perilous situation, and we are treated to heart-warming scenes in which Ernesto’s parents watch as their young son clumsily attempts to change his pronunciation from that of Cuban Spanish to Argentine.

Daniel and Cristina, with the help of uncle Beto (Ernesto Alterio), set up a chocolate distribution company as cover for their illicit activities. Blindfolded montoneros are regularly led into their house to receive orders from the couple, who run clandestine operations out of the base in Buenos Aires. A hiding place in the garage is created in case of emergency, and Ernesto is instructed to take his baby sister there if ever they encounter danger.

Many of these scenes are shot using a hand held camera, which successfully conveys the sense of camaraderie that exists amongst the revolutionaries. Cinematographer Iván Gierasinchuk bathes the images of the Montoneros sitting around and singing in yellow light, creating a feeling of warm nostalgia for pre-conflict times.

The pressure of the situation takes it toll on the main characters Daniel (César Troncoso) and Cristina (Natalia Oreiro).

Alongside the obvious trauma and fear that comes with having to assume a false identity, Ernesto attempts to live the normal life of a schoolboy and has to deal with the added stress of falling in love for the first time. Ávila portrays the adolescent romance by employing close up camera shots of his protagonist’s eyes, gazing longingly at his female classmate, Maria (Violeta Palukas). This, combined with some clichéd dialogue between the lovesick youngsters and excessive use of slow motion footage, is the films weakest trait and adheres too closely to a stereotypical portrayal of teenage romance. Despite this, Teo Gutiérrez Moreno produces a mesmerising performance as Juan/Ernesto, displaying immense charisma and maturity beyond his years.

The film’s most powerful scene occurs when Beto arranges for Ernesto’s grandmother, Amalia (Cristina Banegas), to visit. She is invited to take part in her grandson’s fake birthday party. Ernesto is only made aware of the fact that it is supposedly his birthday when all his classmates start singing to him. He joins in, before realising that it is him they are singing to. An argument breaks out after the birthday party, when Amalia, at first tentatively, but then hysterically, tries to voice her concerns about the safety of her grandchildren to her daughter and son-in-law. It is an incredibly thought-provoking scene in which Ávila highlights the impossible ideological conundrum facing revolutionaries. The Montoneros are fighting for a better future for their offspring but in so doing are threatening said children’s lives. The powerful line “esto es un tiempo de compromiso” (“this is a time for commitment”) is repeated several times by Ernesto’s father to justify their actions, but only serves to increase the tension in the room. No character dares to properly expand on the matter, for fear of further upsetting the others. The audience gets the impression that this is a subject over which different generations will never be able to see eye to eye.

Whilst recently there has been a seemingly endless number of films made about this turbulent episode in Argentina’s past, Ávila still manages to produce something original and moving. His use of animation to depict and diffuse the violence seen through the child’s eyes is brilliant, and forces the audience to imagine their own brutal reality. Politically, the film manages to remain surprisingly bipartisan. It shows the violence to which the Montoneros were subjected, but also highlights the way in which they ruthlessly risked the lives of other, including their own children, to achieve their goals.

One critic called the film “too mainstream for art houses, too arty for multiplexes”. Yet it is precisely this trait that makes the work so appealing. The film combines accessible, realistic drama with visually stimulating camera work and animation. It takes a much covered topic, and instead of focusing predictably on violence and politics, offers a heartfelt depiction of the day-to-day emotional trauma experienced by a generation too young to fully comprehend the situation, with no choice but to cope as best they could.

What could two kids – one of them coming from a German Jewish family and the other from a German nazi family – have in common in 1950s Argentina? Would you imagine them living on the same street and hanging out together? Could you see their future as a couple?

El Amigo Alemán

Argentina opened its doors to all immigrants – especially those coming from Europe – during the previous century. The biggest waves of immigration from the other side of the Atlantic came during periods of revolution and war – thousands of refugees, regime victims, and later war criminals escaped from Europe where they couldn’t share the same territory peacefully, seeking a new life together, as an expat community, in Argentina. Did those unresolved European issues remained in the new country too?

‘El Amigo Alemán’ (The German Friend), out for general cinema release today, is a brilliant film by Jeanine Meerapfel that explores the poorly-understood social conflicts of immigrants settling in a new country, and provides an interesting alternative perspective on 20th century Argentine history.

The film starts as the love story between a girl, Sulamit, coming from a German Jewish family and a boy, Friedrich, coming from a German nazi family. They are neighbours in Argentina, and both attend the same school, though their parents do not seem to be happy about their blossoming relationship. When Friedrich becomes 18, he discovers the dark past of his father, a former SS general in nazi Germany. The young man cuts all relations with his family and leaves for Germany, full of angry energy, to change the world. Sulamit follows him and they maintain their friendship, though the romantic side of the relationship is challenged. Friedrich then leaves her again, going back to fight against the dictatorship in Argentina and ending up in prison in Patagonia. Sulamit meets another person, Michael, but her love for Friedrich never dies. After first travelling from Germany to visit him in prison she then returns again to Argentina as a 40 year old, when he writes her a letter from a Mapuche village in Patagonia.

‘El Amigo Alemán’ is a co-production of Argentina and Germany. It deals with the sensitive problems of the post-World War II period in a natural way, helped by the fact that it’s based on the director’s own personal experience.

Poster for the 'El Amigo Alemán'

Director and co-producer, Jeanine Meerapfel, was born in Argentina in the 1950s in a German-Jewish family. She was a part of the uneasy build-up of a new society, where the children of immigrants were protagonists and faced difficult situations as they discovered their parents’ backgrounds. When Meerapfel grew up, she chose to go back to the country of her family, to a Germany that was still going through the post-war reconstruction process. Meerapfel saw the massive youth protests in the biggest German cities in 1968, people who were ashamed to be Germans and were turning to the extreme left. Later, this would help her understand what was happening in Argentina during and after the 1976-83 dictatorship.

She began on working on the film that would show the social aspects of her biography in two countries – Argentina and Germany – about three years ago. Some 70% of  ’El Amigo Alemán’ was filmed in Argentina, inspiring Meerapfel’s decision is to release it first here and then in Germany.

Besides showing the hidden history of Argentina in the previous century, Meerapfel says the film deliberately focuses on fundamental human values: hate can be surpassed through love. Meerapfel admits that the film is partially autobiographical and describes it as a form of liberation. Most Argentine actors in the cast agree, and during a screening in September they shared personal stories similar to those depicted on the film. Asked about a violent scene, where Sulamit is accused and beaten by a group of Argentine guys in her school, Meerapfel responds, ”such cases were pretty normal in the 1950s, but that has definitely changed now.”

“Everything we do is autobiographic,” Meerapfel continues. The original name of the film was ‘Hijos de…’ (Children of…) as they are the ones who were most traumatised their parents’ past. The actual title of the film is the name by which Sulamit’s mother always refers to Friedrich. At one point, an exasperated Sulamit replies during a phone call from Germany, that “He is not German, he is Argentine!” This emphasises another of the film’s central themes: it’s important to know where we come from and what our roots are, but life goes on, and it moves forward. These children of immigrants torn apart by conflict are now the citizens of a new country and their mission is to build another society, free from hate.