BAFICI: Ten films reflecting Argentina’s identity

The 27th Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival (BAFICI), kicked off on Wednesday and runs until April 26. Organized by the Buenos Aires City Culture Ministry, the festival will screen 327 titles from countries as diverse as the U.S., Spain, France, India, Thailand, and Iran, as well as 147 Argentine short and feature-length films, mostly world premieres.Within that huge offer, some of the Argentine films selected for official competitions and other program areas provide a good opportunity to shed light on iconic, secret, and current traits of local modern culture and history.  1. Los caminantes de la calle / Street Wanderers Juan Martín Hsu‘89 Inspired by real events, Argentine director Juan Martín Hsu’s second feature film (his opera prima was La salada) combines police procedural and migrant drama that take advantage of the large Chinese community in Argentina and links up with the recent tradition of Asian action cinema.  The plot lies on a classic trope in the police genre: an Argentine prosecutor and a Chinese police translator listen in on Cantonese wiretaps to dismantle a powerful mafia that controls the Chinese community in Mendoza.  2. El infierno está encantador – Gulp 1985  / Hell Looks Enchanting – Gulp 1985 In the midst of democratic spring, the band Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota (Patricio Rey and his Ricotta Pastries) set one foot in the rock scene and the other in the artistic avant-garde of underground Buenos Aires. Through ‘80s rock clubs, bootleg cassettes and independent records, the group reached an absolute mass appeal (think of the Grateful Dead in terms of mystique and a travelling, cult-like following), without ever sacrificing that radical independence that had become their trademark.  Carcavallo’s film reconstructs the presentation of the band’s first album Gulp! at legendary venue Cemento in Buenos Aires, featuring previously unseen footage and testimonies of musicians, journalists, and people close to the album recording. 3. Annemarie  Mariana Sanguinetti75’ A portrait of the bond between the director and her great-grandmother, the great photographer Annemarie Heinrich, the film is a celebration of the artist whose portraits of Argentine personalities have become timeless classics.  Everyone and everything in 20th century Argentina — from Evita to Mercedes Sosa — seems to have existed to be photographed by Annemarie, as if her camera had invented an important part of the country’s recent history — her art as a mirror of Argentina.  The film features several celebrities as the photographer herself, as the subject of photos taken by people who recall anecdotes and iconic moments. 4. Los vencedores / The Victors Pablo Aparo96’  An Argentine director travels to Malvinas to explore the traces of the 1982 war with Britain. What begins as a portrait of the conflict turns into an unexpected story of friendship with the enemy. The Victors is a documentary triumph with few precedents. Pablo Aparo lands in the Malvinas — which his co-star refers to as the Falklands — perhaps with that vague goal. But the result is a much more complex and observant documentary that allows itself to be surprised and modified by the world that unfolds before it. 5. The universe of Matías Szulanski A Bafici regular and one of the most prolific filmmakers in the country today, Matias Szulanski will present three different films in different sections of the program. The festival’s Opening Film is his Jane Austen adaptation Pride and Prejudice, a fierce comedy about the shooting of a film based on the classic novel set in contemporary Mar del Plata. My Friend’s Friend In the Argentine Competition, he presents My Friend’s Friend, in which a young man returns to Argentina after living in Spain for five years and stays with his friend Laura, with whom he is in love. After being rejected, Paula, an acquaintance from years ago, reappears and confesses her feelings for him, sparking Laura’s jealousy.  In the Careers section, Szulanski’s A Summer Tale, starring Fabian Arenillas, tells the story of Jorge, a go-getter from Buenos Aires who, after suffering a heart attack, runs to prove that he is a good guy. 6. Por amor seguiremos / For Love We Carry On Nahuel Ugazio70’ In the midst of an economic crisis, Daniela, a sound engineer at a cultural center on the verge of closing, finds a form of resistance in the new underground hardcore punk scene and decides to make a record of it before it disappears.A minimalist tale about a young woman struggling in difficult times for culture in the country, the film borders on docufiction, with fiction scenes combined with footage of  bands playing, close-ups from the heart of a mosh pit, and interviews with young people who are part of the scene, filmed in nostalgic Mini DV. 7. Donn. Instrumento de Dios / Donn – Dancer of the 20th Century Florencia Dávila, Mariano Baez72’ For many Argentinians, dancer Jorge Donn is synonymous with two moments that are ingrained in the country’s cultural imagination: his masterful interpretation of Ravel’s Bolero in Claude Lelouche’s 1981 film The Ones and the Others, and his heartfelt reaction to tango legend Polaco Goyeneche’s monumental rendition of “Naranjo en flor” on Juan Carlos Mareco’s TV show Cordialmente in 1984).  The documentary navigates through a magnetic and diverse audiovisual archive to state why and how Donn became the most renowned male figure in 20th-century ballet.  8. Xul  Cristián Costantini103’  A documentary that traces the life and inexhaustible work of Xul Solar through interviews and exceptional archive material, delving into the universe of this painter, astrologer, musician, inventor, and visionary. While his friendship with Jorge Luis Borges is a chapter unto itself, the documentary depicts his body of work, which spans different disciplines with a self-absorbed haughtiness that set him apart, investing him with an aura of rarity that remains impenetrable. 9. Para hacer una película solo se necesita un arma / All You Need to Make a Movie Is a Gun Santiago Sein146’ Dozens of cans containing student films from the 1960s and 1970s, believed to have been lost during the dictatorship, were discovered at the National University of Córdoba. Half a century later, the footage brings back the passion of a generation and the abrupt end of their dreams.  The reels that Santiago Sein develops in his role as an archivist are more than a mere testimony to the political history of the 1970s, as he adds layers of self-reflexivity and transforms loose fragments into an activist cinema bomb. A typical documentary, a political essay and a poetic found-footage film. 10. No matar / Not to Kill Juan Villegas225’ Destined to be one of the most politically debated films in the program, Villegas’ documentary is described as a hypnotic critical memoir about revolutionary violence in Argentina in the 1970s.  The film features the voices and testimonies of former members of armed militant organizations speaking straight to the camera and remembering their actions. Villegas — whose body of work includes pioneering films of the New Argentine Cinema in the 2000s as well as documentaries and comedies —  delivers a formal combination of wide shots, interviews, witnesses’ voices, musical interludes and archival footage, focusing on the people’s own reflections about their past doings.