2024-04-17 03:01:00
While the newspapers focused their attention on the possibility of a retirement plan for those over 60, the imminent construction of a casino in Tigre, the 1-1 draw of the Argentine team with its Dutch counterpart in a friendly and the launch of the disk brutal honesty by Andrés Calamaro, he April 1, 1999 The City of Buenos Aires witnessed the first independent film festival in its history. Twenty-five years have passed and the Bafici is no longer an exclusive issue for film buffs, but rather one of the most prominent events with the largest audience on the Buenos Aires cultural agenda, scrolls that must be validated starting this Wednesday the 17th and until Sunday the 28th with his 25th edition.
During that period it will offer a menu of more than 280 movies, between shorts, mediums and short films, in five hundred functions distributed in 13 salas from the central area. Tickets can be purchased online on the brand new Bafici.org website (where you can also download the catalog and schedule grid) and, starting tomorrow, in cinemas at a price of $1500 for general and $1200 for students and retirees.
The creation of an exhibition park with rooms with better image and sound quality – as well as more comfortable – than those of the last couple of years is a good indication for a festival that was somewhat down on that matter. “The theater circuit was designed so that the films can be seen in the best possible way and have more comfort in terms of schedules and presentations,” he says. the artistic director of Bafici, Javier Porta Fouz. To the almost inevitable Lugones Room –absent only in the years that the Festival coincided with one of its endless renovations– of the San Martín Theater, where the Meeting Point will also operate, the four of the Cinépolis Houssay, the two of the San Martin Cultural Center, the three of the renewed Cinearte Cacodelphia, that of Pablo Ducros Hicken Film Museum (weekends only) and two of the Gaumont. The largest, number 1, will have activity throughout the day, while number 2 will have a couple of night screenings, which will allow films, especially Argentine ones, “to be presented at good times,” he adds.
From schools and recitals
Starting with the premiere in 2022 of the tennis trilogy (Smog in your heart, Saturdays disorders y Weak rangers), Lucia Seles He became one of the most unique voices in contemporary national cinema. After having won the Argentine Competition last year con Terminal YoungSeles will return to the foreground of the Bafici thanks to the choice as the opening film of alfonsina storni private schoolnew foray into the field of comedy of mismatched characters, focused on this occasion on the experiences of an employee of a private school who receives a promotion. “It is a film of authorial singularity,” says Porta Fouz about whom she will also present fire supplyand adds: “There is a personality in his cinema. It really is a signed cinema. It is an absurd, poetic universe, always with everyday or very strange professional quarrels, and with humorous observations. It is very difficult to define it because it is really a very unique proposal.”
The closing will be in charge of Fuck You!, The last show. The brand new documentary by José Luis García –who won the Audience Award in 2005 with Cándido López, the battlefieldsand the Argentine Competition in 2012 with The girl from the south– is made on the basis of unpublished material from the concert that Sumo gave at the Obras Sanitarias stadium in 1987, shortly before the death of its singer and leader, the legendary Luca Prodan. Fuck You! She will not be alone in her quest to revisit great milestones of national rock, since it will also be seen – in a 35 mm copy in perfect condition – Goodbye Sui Géneristhe documentary filmed by Bebe Kamin during the two farewell recitals that the duo gave at Luna Park in September 1975, six months before the beginning of the last civil-military dictatorship.
The Argentine battalion
The choice of national films for the opening and closing It corresponds to the relevant place that Argentine cinema will have in a catalog with, once again, shorts and long films coexisting side by side, without distinction of durations. In fact, as Porta Fouz said during the festival presentation, local enrollment was record, Therefore, several of those chosen will have only two functions instead of the usual three. A situation that contrasts with a context where the majority of the sector feels its survival in danger as a result of the chainsaw and the “cultural battle” of the government led by Javier Miley. How this will impact the words of the directors during the presentations prior to the screenings – especially those who put together their financial scheme with state contributions as the main pillar, which are many – is one of the many questions in a present with more doubts. what certainties.
The argent offering is wide and varied, for all palates, and spreads throughout all sections. Starting with the International Competition, in which the long ones will be The pleasure is mineby Sacha Amaral, and La odisea de Kamatsu, by Leo Liberman and Sofía López Mañán. The first has as its protagonist a young man who is dedicated to marijuana sale and to make connections with people you meet through apps to steal money from them, all while the conflictive coexistence with his mother It takes him on a journey to the south. The other, to a Japanese who migrated to Argentina during the postwar period, attracted by the myth of the existence of a goose with green eggs. The shorts The passionby Lorenzo Ferro and Lucas A. Vignale; The return, by Gastón Urquía Romano; and Lennyby Nicolás Gontovnikas, complete the light blue and white offering in this section.
Seventeen short films and thirteen long films make up the corpus of the Argentine Competition, that will continue the custom of mixing productions by new directors with others by experienced filmmakers. Among the first-timers are Matilde Tute Vissani (I never went to Disney), Nicolás Aráoz from Tucumán (Ships and cathedrals) and Lorena Vega, who co-directed Printers along with Gonzalo Javier Zapico. If the name sounds familiar, it is because it is a detachment from the autobiographical work of the same name that the actress and playwright has been presenting since 2018 almost continuously, only with a break forced by the pandemic. How to continue telling the family story when you can’t act is the central question the film tries to answer.
The other platoon is led by two directors who already know what competing in the Bafici is all about: Raul Perrone (COMBO15) y José Celestino Campusano (Territory). A step back follows them Alejandro Fernández Mouján, who returns to the folding chair after almost ten years to command – together with Hernán Khourian – the destinies of Leave Romeroa documentary that closely follows the experience of demanicomalization headed by the young people gathered in the Movement for Demanicomialization in Romero.
Andres Tambornino was one of those responsible for Restone of the emblematic titles of the first stage of New Argentine Cinema. He later developed a career mostly in the assembly area, although he continued directing. Made with Alejandro Gruz, her latest work is called Dead manstars Osvaldo Laport, Diego Velázquez, Daniel Valenzuela, Roly Serrano and Sebastián Francini and takes place in a small town lost between mountains paralyzed after the closure of a mine. A stranger arrives there with a bundle of bills under his arm, ready to be delivered to whoever is willing to kill the owner of the mine.
Skilled in the fine art of comedy, Matías Szulanski is the director of Berta and Pablowhose protagonist visits her deceased grandmother’s house to see what she can recover among her belongings and, among some books, discovers that she was corresponding with a man. Emiliano Serra Its main antecedent is the very good Mailman. In his last work, Correspondent, He temporarily travels to Argentina in 1978 to follow a correspondent in media related to Latin American dictatorships who prepares a report that causes the kidnapping of an exiled doctor and, when writing the chronicles about the event to cover it up, he is persecuted by his own ghosts.
The prolific Martin Farina for The changing of the guardabout the friendship of almost fifty years maintained by a group of men who met in military service during the dictatorship. The synopsis of Vrutosby Miguel Bou, promises revenge, street epic, camaraderie and neighborhood warriors through the search for revenge of a boy beaten by rugby players. Ghost cycloneby Diana Cardini, focuses on a group of characters who seek to make their dreams come true in a space full of myths and beliefs as Luján, while Marco Berger rehearses, in astronaut loversa new approach to male desire. In the last Competition, Avant-garde and Gender, there will be Homophobia!of the nondescript Goyo Anchou, a comedy about a chongo who believes that his girlfriend is leaving him and, very frustrated, decides to seduce a classmate from film school. And also the co-production with the United States Low orangeby Michael Taylor Jackson and with him, Sofia Gala Castiglione and Vera Spinetta in the main roles.
The world on screen
And there is much more Argentine cinema. In the section special nights, for example, there is six movies: The returnby Guido Mignogna and Lucas Spósito; The agronomistby Martín Turnes; The star that I lostby Luz Orlando Brennan; The leaguesby Diego Fió; Martin Garciaby Aníbal Ezequiel Garisto, and Alone in paradise, by actress Justina Bustos and Victoria Comune. In section Arts and crafts is programmed A certain Mario, the directorial debut of journalist Mariana Mactas, who addresses the figure of her father, also journalist Mario Mactas. Néstor Frenkel will take another step on his exploratory path of the most bizarre areas of Argentine cinema con After a good daywhile Miguel Kohan will premiere the brand new Spirit.
But Bafici lives not only on competitions and national cinema, as those who browse the catalog with the inexhaustible desire to satisfy their eyes well know. The parallel sections They are old acquaintances: First Films, Music, Cinema about Cinema, Nocturnal, Comedies, Places, Arts and Crafts, Becoming Big, Families, Passions, Portraits, Romances, Baficito and, the favorites of many, Rescues and Trajectories. Almost all the Rescues movies are for renting balconies, but among the favorites, the one already mentioned stands out Goodbye Sui Géneris; after timefrom such a Martin Scorsese; Crazy Loveby Jacques Rivette, and the imperishable Paris, Texasthe Wim Wenders.
It is likely that the enunciation of the terms “trajectories” and “Bafici” in the same sentence will generate more than one hyperventilation. And rightly so, because there they are the latest works by directors of wide international recognition. Like Hong Sang-soo, for example, who films at a rate of two or three films a year as if it were the easiest thing in the world. In 2024, at least for now, it comes calmer, and “only” premiered A Traveler’s Needs. The list could continue with Alexander Kluge (Cosmic Miniatures), Bruno Dumont (The Empire), André Téchiné (The People Next Door), Cristi Puiu (MMXX) y Jonas Mekas (Requiem). Everything ready, then, for a load of cinema, even if the world falls apart.