2024-04-14 03:15:51
The Bafici that begins next Wednesday the 17th is proud – with all justice – to have in its programming the world premiere of more than one hundred Argentine films, including shorts, mediums and feature films, that participate in its different competitions and sections, including the features opening and closing. It is undoubtedly a very important number, which would draw attention at any international festival to the production capacity of a national cinema.
Anyone would say – if they didn’t know the context – that this is an extraordinary moment for local cinema, in the splendor of its capabilities and in full expansion. However, the opposite happens: as is well known, today Argentine cinema is completely paralyzed by the political decision of Javier Milei’s government, the National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts (Incaa) ignores its specific functions of promoting cinema. national and that shocking number that Bafici reflects corresponds to the production dynamics of previous years, which is only now beginning to see the light in these first months of 2024, as happened at the Berlinale last February, where Argentine cinema was the one with the greatest representation in Latin America and where it was awarded the Golden Bear for best short film, for A strange movementby Francisco Lezama.
The main film publications from around the world, from European magazines Cinema Notebooks, Sight & Sound y Sleep filmpassing through specialized Hollywood portals such as Variety, Hollywood Reporter y Deadline, have been reporting in recent months on the constant attacks and cuts to Argentine cinema. Letters of support and international solidarity with national cinema have multiplied in different areas (French cinema did so last week with a text titled “Le cinéma argentin est au bord du précipice”, signed by more than a hundred of the main references of the medium) and the directors of some of the main festivals in the world, such as Jose Luis Rebordinos of San Sebastian and Thierry Frémaux from Cannes, do not stop publicly expressing their indignation and perplexity at the deliberate attempt to destroy Argentine cinema.
However, here the Bafici maintains a suspicious silence on the matter, as if the problem were foreign and distant to it. As for 25 years, the majority of the films that the Bafici will now exhibit have, in one way or another, support from the Incaa and/or the National Arts Fund (today headless and also paralyzed), while the Buenos Aires festival looks on the other hand and says nothing about it. Of the talks, presentations and dialogue tables that are announced, there is not a single one that is specifically dedicated to the topic, as if it did not exist.
If the current administration has paralyzed Incaa since its inauguration, 120 days ago, and has just announced the suspension of projects for at least another 90, Bafici should start worrying about its programming for next year. How many Argentine films will it be able to present in 2025 if production today is completely stopped? With the layoffs and cuts underway, will the Gaumont that the Incaa manages and in this edition lend two of its rooms, including the one with the greatest capacity that the Bafici has today, still exist? Does the Buenos Aires festival not even have a word of solidarity with its counterpart, the Mar del Plata Festival, which has been left adrift, barely clinging to the improvisation of the mayor of that city, Guillermo Montenegro, who even said without blushing What do you imagine “a Netflix festival”?
If the Bafici does not plan to speak out on any of these issues, it should be the film people – directors, producers, actors, technicians, journalists, viewers – who take the floor, not only at the presentations of their premieres, but also at the Punto of the San Martín Theater Meeting or at the door of the Gaumont cinema, right there where the City Police (the same City that organizes the Bafici) repressed filmmakers and film students on March 14. The Bafici, let us not forget, is a public festival and it is legitimate for it to become – in this edition more than in any other of its 25 years of history – a platform open to debates and assemblies on the present and future of Argentine cinema. .