There’s still time to get in on BAFICI before the festival ends on Saturday. And despite the festival’s international nature, there are many local screenings worth catching. Below film writer Wendy Gosselin reviews a few of the not-to-be-missed Argentine films in this year’s edition.
‘Cumbia la reina’ (Pablo Coronel)
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Cumbia is the black sheep of the tropical music family, a genre that is rarely given a legitimate place in Latin American music—at least, the kind of cumbia that is played in Argentina. Pablo Coronel is out to set the record straight in this documentary, which traces cumbia from its nearly miraculous inception at the hands of los Wawancó back in the 1950s all the way to strange cumbia offspring today. In addition to some great archive materials, almost every cumbia start is spoken for in this 75-minute film: El Cuarteto Imperial, Koli Arce, Los del Trópico and moving forward, Pablo Lescano (the band leader of Damas Gratis), Los Comanche and the singer-turned-popular-saint Gilda. The film pauses to reflect on cumbia villera and its bad rap (no pun intended) and then fast-forwards to cumbia DJs and popular dance halls across the country where people of all ages are swinging their hips to the beat. Although I think the film could have dedicated a little more time to the middle class and its strange love-hate relationship with cumbia, it is definitely worth seeing. As part of BAFICI’s outdoor screenings, you can catch it at the Parque Centenario amphitheatre on Thursday 23rd April at 8pm!
Cumbia la Reina shows tonight at 8.30pm at Villa Recoleta, Sala 4, on Thursday at the Parque Centenario amphitheatre at 8pm, and on Friday at El Cultural San Martín, Sala 2, at 2.15pm.
‘El cielo del centauro’ (Hugo Santiago)
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Although there are no more screenings scheduled for BAFICI 2015’s opening film, I suspect that during the last days of the festival they may add a surprise screening or two for this wondrous production. Hugo Santiago – a sort of prócer of modern Argentine film after directing the 1969 film ‘Invasión’ (with a script co-written with Jorge Luis Borges) – returns to Buenos Aires to shoot this fantastical tale. A French sailor arrives at the Buenos Aires port with a brown paper package, carefully addressed in rounded cursive. He has just one day to deliver it to an old friend of his father’s and his ship sails the next day at five — with or without him. What appears to be a simple drop-off soon turns into a lavish mystery that leads him to points across the city like the Museo Histórico Nacional, the attic of a school in Flores, and a corner in Villa Ortúzar. Wherever he goes he is tracked by a slinking group of ruffians straight out of a turn-of-the-century tango. ‘El cielo del centauro’ harkens back to the moment when anything could happen in a film, all with that very Borges feeling of eternal Buenos Aires. If you don’t get to see it at BAFICI, don’t miss it when it is on general release.
‘Toponimia’ (Jonathan Perel)
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Born the same year as the coup that set off Argentina’s last and cruelest dictatorship, Jonathan Perel uses his camera to examine a wide range of places associated with the “years of lead”, to use the local expression. In his first feature-length film, ‘El Predio’ (2008), Perel’s camera roamed the property of the former clandestine detention centre ESMA; in ’17 Monumentos’ (2012), he took lingering and discomforting looks at the different monuments across the country marking the sites of the concentration camps. In this latest film, Perel turns his camera to four towns in the province of Tucumán. Each is named after a military officer who died “in the fight against the subversives”. The film is presented as a series of images that include yellowed blueprints for the towns, old archive photographs, and images of the towns today. We rarely see the locals in these still shots, which focus on the now rickety infrastructure from the period. Life can be heard outside the frame, like in a ghost town. Perel appears to be reflecting on the impossibility of knowing what happened in this horrific chapter while exploring the myriad forms of memory.
Toponimia is showing today at 3.10pm at El Cultural San Martín, Sala 2.
‘Generación Artificial’ (Fédérico Pintos)
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Over the past 30 years, video technology has left us in its wake, with almost no time to reflect on what this has meant for our lives. Pintos originally planned to make a documentary on VJs to reflect on the ubiquity of images and our increasing ability to alter them. Along the way, however, he generated something novel, a film he refers to as a “docu-thriller”, but which I would call a “mock-doc”, as it floats somewhere between fiction and reality. There’s the excitement of the VHS and the amazing power of rewinding, fast-forwarding, and recording (now humdrum, but it was certainly thrilling then); an endless succession of weddings and quinceañeras captured on cheesy “professional” videos; and, moving forward, soundtracks that reproduce binaural beats. The whirlwind review includes a non-stop and nearly overwhelming series of images that keep you on the edge of your seat. And if that weren’t enough, there’s the elusive VJ Lascano who has promised Pintos an unforgettable end to his film. ‘Generación Artificial’ is a rollercoaster ride, not quite like anything I can remember in recent Argentine film.
Generación Artificial is showing tonight at 8.15pm at ArteMultiplex Belgrano, Sala 3.
For a full list of films to catch at this year’s BAFICI, including prices and schedules, visit the website.
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