Entrevista a Alejo Moguillansky y Matías Piñeiro (Clarín)

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Mariano Llinás and Other Argentinean Species: Beyond Official Cinema, by Quintin (Cinema Scope)

In 1999, as a jury member for Antorchas, a now-defunct private foundation that awarded endowments for the arts and the sciences in Argentina, I was reading a huge pile of scripts from filmmakers applying for something like $10,000 US in funding. One of those scripts, written by one Mariano Llinás, was completely different from the others. Not only did it lack the usual three-act structure and disobeyed all the rules and techniques for scriptwriting, it was really different. Titled Balnearios, the proposed film was a voiceover-heavy mockumentary that classified the different kind of water resorts in the country, from the posh sites for the rich by the seaside to very ordinary and not particularly pleasant places along some small rivers. The whole thing could be read as a report for some kind of public office, except for one detail: there was a slightly ironic undertone in the text, too conscious of class nuances to be a bureaucratic document. The script was accompanied with a short film by Llinás called Arroyos de Buenos Aires (Streams of BA) that was made more or less along the same lines, with maps, images of the city, and a very pompous male voice speaking as if in an old newsreel. I felt excited and puzzled by the experience, and I remember asking Flavia, my wife and colleague, to give the project a look. Is it for real, I asked, or is it a kind of joke?

Ten years later, Mariano Llinás has become a major force in Argentinean cinema, although that is an incorrect statement in two opposite senses. On the one hand, Llinás—who until recently was barely known at home—has not become a world-famous filmmaker. On the other, in his capacities as director, producer, writer, editor, actor and teacher, he has opened up a new path for the country’s filmmaking community and a new direction for its cultural milieu. Let me put it another way: essentially, there are two seemingly mutually exclusive zones in Argentinean cinema. One is the commercial stuff, based in genre films (mainly comedies but also thrillers) with (sometimes) popular appeal and (sometimes) international appearances at festivals like San Sebastián, Berlin, or Toronto; names of directors associated with this space are the late Fabián Bielinsky, Daniel Burman, Juan José Campanella, and Marcelo Piñeyro. The second is what some years ago was called “independent” cinema, more art-house oriented films made by Cannes customers like Lucrecia Martel, Lisandro Alonso, or Pablo Trapero, to name the best known abroad. There are people in between (Adrián Caetano, for instance), but there is a very important common ground for both categories: they are both state-funded. Even if many of these films usually also get money form foreign countries and organizations (from European or Asian co-producers, and from festivals and international foundations), a decisive chunk of the budget is covered by the INCAA, the Argentinean Film Institute. With INCAA’s money in place, the rest follows rather easily.

At the beginning, for Pablo Trapero’s Crane World (1999) or for Lisandro Alonso’s La libertad (2001), and also for people like Juan Villegas, Diego Lerman, Celina Murga, or Rodrigo Moreno, this source of financing could not be accessed. But now all of these filmmakers belong to what can be appropriately called Official Argentinean Cinema (OAC). I’m being ambiguous on purpose. INCAA is becoming more and more of a partisan institution under the government of the Kirchners, populist politicians who conceive culture as a battleground for their cause, not a territory for individual expression and freedom. That doesn’t mean that the films are censored (although political subjects are almost completely absent in OAC, not to mention any criticism to the government), but INCAA is looking more and more to be a Soviet-styled institution, the same as state television that a few days ago took over soccer broadcasting. In any event, filmmakers, whether arty or commercial, depend on INCAA to keep making films.

With a few exceptions. Some people don’t want to work with INCAA. One is Raúl Perrone, a sort of local legend who has been making artisan, very low-budget feature films since 1992. Perrone, who makes films very quickly, doesn’t have the patience to write scripts to be approved by any committee, state or otherwise, nor the will to shoot for $300,000, which is more or less the floor for OAC. While Perrone’s maverick example has allowed his name to travel to a few festivals outside of Argentina, Llinás’ case is something else: he has not only decided to do without INCAA but explicitly to defy the system, building a method and a factory oriented towards alternative filmmaking. For nearly a decade, he has been telling his colleagues and the press at every opportunity that the whole funding thing is deadly wrong: that films should not be that expensive, and to make worthwhile work in Argentina, it isn’t necessary to get money from INCAA, nor from the Rotterdam Hubert Bals Fund or Fonds Sud, run by the French government.

So far, Llinás has kept his word. He has produced almost ten films, written a few, directed Balnearios and the unique, amazing, Historias extraordinarias (Extraordinary Stories, 2008). He also wrote and produced El amor (primera parte), a film with four directors that wasn’t an episodic or omnibus film: Llinás and the four directors worked on carefully planned shooting schedule to take advantage of the equipment that was lent for a few days by a film school, the Fundación Universidad del Cine (FUC), where Llinás and many of his friends and associates began to teach after graduating. The FUC is the place where people like Alonso, Trapero, Villegas, Murga and others have studied, but Llinás is part of a different and clearly distinct group, one that was initially built around Rafael Filippelli, veteran filmmaker and professor, who injected in some of his students the idea of Godardian, experimental and non-conventional filmmaking. By now, this group has made half a dozen films, such as A propósito de Buenos Aires (2006), a collective directorial effort by a dozen students, or Manuel Ferrari’s Cómo estar muerto (2007). This year’s output includes Todos mienten (They All Lie) by Matías Piñeiro (who earlier made 2007’s El hombre robado), and Castro by Alejo Moguillansky, also author of La prisionera (2005), a serious candidate for the award of most obscure film in history. Moguillansky edited many of these films, and Castro was made with the money Llinás won by Historias extraordinarias in BAFICI.

The Buenos Aires festival is the perfect launching place for the films from the group, and there is a curious situation about this. In recent years, more or less well-known directors from OAC have been applying to Cannes, Venice, Berlin, San Sebastián, Toronto, or wherever while not even screening their films in BAFICI (nor even in Mar del Plata). So the home turf is left open for low-budget movies that may win money or, at least, an award to finish the film or blow it up to 35mm. Yet while some programmers usually visit the BAFICI on a yearly basis, also some producers, they are not very interested in this kind of filmmaking. It’s too highbrow, too elitist and, at the same time, not easily recognizable as art-house fare. To foreign professionals, films like Castro or Todos mienten (to take this year’s crop) aren’t considered kosher enough to circulate easily on the festival circuit. Some people say this is because there is too much talking in these films, and it’s not easy to follow reading subtitles, but I don’t think that’s enough of a reason.

On the other hand, local critics love these films: they are, so to speak, the Pride of the BAFICI. The contradiction is very interesting, because it involves a hidden clause. A film like Castro represents the core of young and sophisticated culture in the country, and its affiliation with cinema is somehow lateral, in spite of its director’s claims otherwise. Based on a novel by Samuel Beckett, it’s also an homage to Invasión by Hugo Santiago (1969), a cult film by the most refined of Argentinean filmmakers, written by Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares (recently released in a special edition DVD set by the MALBA). But with cameos by writers and directors from the stage, it also somehow plays like a ballet, full of physical action and choreographed movements, as well as references to books and music. The film thus reflects the very active and extremely prestigious underground and not-that-underground theatre scene in Buenos Aires.

Todos mienten, on the other hand, is a film that deals with weighty issues of national history, crossed with allusions to more traditional art films. (Piñeiro is more of a conventional cinephile director than Moguillansky.) It resembles some of Rivette’s more theatrically oriented films like Céline et Julie vont en bateau (1974), with many long-take scenes and virtuoso camera movements. The main actress is Romina Paula, a playwright, theatre director, and novelist. In her first book (the second is about to be published), the main character resembles the one she plays in another film, Resfriada, by Gonzalo Castro (no relation). Castro, another young filmmaker, novelist (his first book, Hidrografía doméstica is almost a masterpiece) and publisher, doesn’t like Llinás’ films at all, but he shares the same connections and is also firmly set against OAC. His theory is that with the new technology at hand, a filmmaker cannot be considered an author unless he does everything by himself: from script to camera to sound to poster design. Under these guidelines he has already made two films in the last two years Resfriada (which won the prize for best director at BAFICI 2008) and Cocina, almost-documentary group portraits of high-end professionals, such as the people from his own publishing house; his upcoming third film will have as a subject Mario Bellatín, a hyper-cult Mexican writer. So, while film business continues as usual in OAC, there is a new development that speaks about a powerful cultural scene not entirely able to be described in terms of cinema itself.

But the whole movement would be very marginal if it wasn’t for the Historias extraordinarias, a piece of work that turned its maker into a local idol in certain circles. (It still screens to large houses every Sunday at the MALBA, more than a year after its release, where Balnearios also had a dedicated audience.) The film’s title is apt: it’s something of a homemade megaproduction, a four-hour movie with 40 locations, 50 actors, dozens of stories, and original music (Llinás also composed the main song), made for peanuts (less than $50,000) and completely apart from local production habits. (There is also a lion, a tank, and some scenes were shot, almost unbelievably, in Mozambique.) The film also features acting parts for famous people from the theatre scene such as Rafael Spregelburd and Lola Arias, both playwrights published by Castro’s house.

Historias extraordinarias shows Llinás’ growth since the Balnearios script. With its 18 chapters, three main stories and a handful of secondary ones, a voiceover covers almost every inch of the footage. The idea breaks the rules against redundancy that have been stressed in film courses since day one, but with a crucial catch. While the image overlaps with the text, it does not do so perfectly: in some cases the story anticipates the image and in others trails behind it, creating a sort of counterpoint between both techniques. Also, there is a consistent parody-like tone in the narration that both makes fun of the film’s genre-hybridized being (road movie, thriller, love story, adventure, war film) but still keeps the feeling of them, even through the use of some popular corny songs. And there is a literary parody as well: the text is Borgesian to the bone, solemn and verbose with a grain of self-irony. Organized like a book by Georges Perec, the goal of the film is less to tell stories than to sketch them. According to Llinás, that’s one of Borges’ lessons: it is not necessary to tell a whole story or to write a novel about it, not even a short one; on the contrary, it is enough to explain it in a few words. Translated into film language, this means shooting a couple of scenes, or maybe even showing a location and some faces that imply the rest, but, at the same time, delaying and overstating some situations simply for pleasure.

Historias extraordinarias is a thoroughly postmodern film, a narcissistic patchwork made up of all sorts of references, but in this playful and frequently nonsensical machine there is a heart. The film shows the quest of its maker, it bears the extremely amateur, but in the end very professional, mark characteristic of Llinás, as well as also some sort of strange melancholy about the absurdity of his achievement. It’s a truly crazy film—not unflawed, but very touching in the end, because it states that film itself has become an endangered species, and that such a titanic work is needed to build something remarkable, although it itself is as thin and impermanent as a house of cards. In any case, Historias extraordinarias breathes freedom, and even if it’s only a sidestep in film history it’s well worth the detour. Maybe this arrogant, domestic maverick has discovered some kind of clue to the future of film.

"Castro/Todos mienten", en el MALBA

Film del mes XLV

Todos mienten (Argentina, 2009), de Matías Piñeiro
Domingos a las 19:00

Un grupo de jóvenes se reúne en una casa abandonada en las afueras de Buenos Aires con la intención de organizar un golpe que va a terminar con las relaciones oscuras que los unen entre falsificaciones y amores, entre robos y besos y entre el arte plástico contemporáneo y la historia argentina del siglo XIX. Helena Pickford silenciosamente dispone sus fichas en este juego de lúdicas conspiraciones en las que el mejor consejo para quien guste ponerse a jugar es el de no creer una sola palabra de lo que se dice.


Ficha técnica
Dirección y guión: Matías Piñeiro
Producción: Iván Granovsky, Lionel Braverman y Pablo Chernov
Imagen: Fernando Lockett
Montaje: Delfina Castagnino
Sonido: Daniela Ale y Emilio Iglesias
Arte: Ana Cambre
Asistente de dirección: Alejo Franzetti
Elenco: Romina Paula, María Villar, Julia Martínez Rubio, Pilar Gamboa, Julián Tello, Julián Larquier Tellarini, Esteban Bigliardi, Esteban Lamothe.
País: Argentina
Año: 2009
Duración: 75’
REVÓLVER FILMS / EL PAMPERO CINE
PROD. ASOCIADO: UNIVERSIDAD DEL CINE

***


Film del mes XLVI

Castro (Argentina, 2009), de Alejo Moguillansky
Domingos a las 20:30

Castro huye. Ha dejado atrás su vida, sobrevive escondido en un pequeño cuarto en una pequeña ciudad. Básicamente está sólo, pero en su vida ha aparecido una tal Celia. Celia es joven, es hermosa, es (a veces) cruel.
Celia y Castro sobreviven juntos sin trabajo ni dinero en sus vidas. Puede decirse (pero puede decirse lo mismo de cualquier pareja) que se aman. En un momento, abandonan su ciudad de provincia y se marchan a la Capital, a un nuevo refugio. Allí Castro emplea su tiempo en buscar trabajo. De a poco Castro descubre la contradicción: ganarse la vida es igual a desperdiciarla.
Del otro lado está el complot que los persigue, cada uno por diferentes razones: el antiguo maestro de Castro, Samuel, porque necesita de él; su antigua mujer, Rebecca Thompson, porque lo ama; el cínico Willy, por motivos no demasiado claros; el desafortunado Acuña, porque le pagan para que lo encuentre.
En algún momento los perseguidores rastrean a Castro y Celia hasta la Capital. En algún momento, Castro encuentra trabajo y abandona a Celia. En algún otro momento, el complot da con Celia en la pensión que compartía con Castro. En otro momento, Castro roba el auto de los perseguidores. En un momento, todo (perseguidores y perseguidos, sus estrategias y sus razones) tiende a confundirse.
Castro, por su parte, vuelve a huir. Esta vez, acaso, para siempre


Ficha técnica
Dirección y guión: Alejo Moguillansky
Producción: Mariano Llinás y Laura Citarella
Producción ejecutiva: Eduardo Costantini
Fotografía: Gustavo Biazzi
Sonido: Rodrigo Sánchez Mariño
Dirección coreográfica: Luciana Acuña
Montaje: Alejo Moguillansky y Mariano Llinás
Arte: Ana Cambre
Música: Ulises Conti
Elenco: Edgardo Castro, Julia Martínez Rubio, Carla Crespo, Esteban Lamothe, Alberto Suárez, Gerardo Naumann.
País: Argentina
Año: 2009
Duración: 85’
EL PAMPERO CINE / COSTAFILMS
PROD. ASOCIADO: UNIVERSIDAD DEL CINE


Entrada General: $13.- Estudiantes y jubilados: $7.-

Programación completa del Festival de Locarno

"Castro", de Alejo Moguillansky

The 62nd Locarno Film Festival has revealed a strong programme of international arthouse films, including 24 world premieres across the Piazza Grande programme and International Competition selection.

This year’s festival, which runs August 5 – 15, will also focus on the impact of Manga on Western cinema with a section dedicated to Japanese animation, which also include a number of international premieres and special guests.

There are 13 films in this year’s Piazza Grande line-up, with 10 world premieres. While it will feature a Manga night to support this year’s focus, there is a distinctly European flavour. The section’s opening night film, Sundance favourite 500 Days Of Summer, is one of only two US films featured across the festival.

The outdoor screenings will also include world premieres of Amos Gitai’s Jewish war film La Guerre Des Fils De La Lumiere Contre Les Fils Des Tenebres; Arnaud and Jean-Marie Larrieu’s Les Dernier Jours Du Monde, which tells the story of a man’s search for love during a worldwide disaster; and Byambasuren Davaa’s Chingisiyn Hoyor Zagal, an exploration of Mongolian culture, will close the section.

The International Competition will feature 18 films from 15 countries, including seven first works. It will include She, A Chinese, from British-based Chinese writer and director Xiaolu Guo, whose credits include the novel A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers. The film, which will have its world premiere at the festival, received funding from a number of UK and German funds, including UK Film Council, Warp X and Film4, and Filmforderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein.

Oliver Hermanus’ South African drama Shirley Adams, which tells the desperate tale of a single mother and her invalid son, is among the first films featured and is also an international premiere. Debuts will also include Laurent Perreau’s family conflict film L’Insurgee and Urzsula Antoniak’s Nothing Personal, starring Stephen Rea.

The International Competition Jury includes Jean-Marie Blanchand, the director of the Grande Theatre de Geneve, German actress Nina Hoss and Sang-soo Hong, the South Korean film-maker.

The festival’s Film-makers of the Present Competition section, which includes 17 films, also has a strong first film line-up and nine world premieres. The latter includes Andrew Kötting’s third feature, Ivul, and Kǽrlighedens Krigere, a contemporary version of Romeo & Juliet, by Denmark’s Simon Staho.

The festival will also honour American director William Friedkin with the Leopard of Honour, which celebrates it 20th anniversary this year, and Italian actor Toni Servillo with the Excellence Award, for his long career as a theatre and film actor. Paolo Sorrentino’s Le Conseguenze Dell’Amore, starring Servillo, to complement the awards ceremony. As previously reported on ScreenDaily, Martine Marignac will be awarded the Raimondo Rezzonico Prize for best independent producer award.

Piazza Grande – full line-up:

500 Days Of Summer, Dir: Marc Webb (US)

Blue Sofa, Dir: Giuseppe Baresi (Italy)

Chingisiyn Hoyor Zagal, Dir: Byambasuren Davaa (Germany)

Giulias Verschwinden, Dir: Christoph Schaub (Swizerland)

La Guerre Des Fils De La Lumiere Contre Les Fils De Tenebres, Dir: Amos Gitai (France)

La Valle Delle Ombre, Dir: Mihály Györik (Switzerland/Italy/Hungary)

Les Derniers Jours De Monde, Dir: Arnaud Larrieu and Jean-Marie Larrieu – (France/Spain/Taiwan)

Les Yeux De Simone (short film), Dir: Jean Louise Porchet (Swizerland/France)

My Sisters Keeper, Dir: Nick Cassavetes (United States)

Petit Indi, Dir:Marc Recha (Spain/France)

Pom Poko, Dir: Isao Takahata (Japan)

Redline, Dir:Takeshi Koike (Japan)

Same Same But Different, Dir: Detlev Buck (Germany)

Sounds And Silence, Dir: Norbert Wiedmer and Peter Guyer (Switzerland)

Unter Bauern – Retter in Der Nacht, Dir: Ludi Boeken (Germany/France)

Manga Night

Mobile Suit Gundam, Dir Ryoji Fujiwara and Yoshiyuki Tomino

La Maison en Petits Cubes, Dir: Kunio Kato

First Squad: The Moment Of Truth, Dir: Yoshiharu Asino, Misha Shprits, Aljoscha Klimov (Canada/Russia/Germany)

International Competition

A Religiosa Portuguesa, Dir: Eugene Green (Portugal/France)

Akadimia Platonos, Dir: Filippos Tsitos (Greece/Germany) – 2009 – 103 min

Au Voleur, Dir: Sarah Leonor (France)

Buben Baraban, Dir: Aleksei Mizgiryov (Russia) – 2009 – 105 min

Complices, Dir: Frédéric Mermoud (France/Switzerland)

Frontier Blues, Dir: Babak Jalali (Iran/Great Britain/Italy)

La Cantante De Tango, Dir: Diego Martinez Vignatti (Belgium/Argentina)

La Donation, Dir: Bernard Émond (Canada)

La Invencion De La Carne, Dir: Santiago Loza (Argentina)

L’Insurgee, Dir: Laurent Perreau (France)

Nothing Personal, Dir: Urszula Antoniak (Netherlands/Ireland)

Os Famosos E Os Duendes Da Morte, Dir: Esmir Filho (Brazil/France)

She, A Chinese. Dir: Xiaolu Guo (Great Britain/France/Germany)

Shirley Adams, Dir: Oliver Hermanus (South Africa/United States)

Summer Wars, Dir: Mamoru Hosoda (Japan)

The Search, Dir: Pema Tseden (China)

Wakarana, Dir: Masahiro Kobayashi (Japan)

Out of Competition:

La Paura, Dir: Pippo Delbono (France)

Film-makers of the Present Competition

Castro, Dir: Alejo Moguillansky (Argentina)

Halsningar Fran Skogen, Dir: Mikel Cee Karlsson (Sweden)

Ivul, Dir: Andrew Kotting (France/Switzerland)

Kærlighedens Krigere, Dir: Simon Staho (Denmark)

Koprudekiler, Dir: Asli Ozge (Germany/Turkey/Netherlands)

La Reine Des Pommes, Dir: Valérie Donzelli (France)

Mirna, Dir: Corso Salani (Italy)

Musashi: The Dream Of The Last Samurai, Dir: Mizuho Nishikubo (Japan)

Nikotoko Tou, Dir: Takuya Dairiki and Takashi Miura (Japan)

October Country, Dir: Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher (United States)

Piombo Fuso, Dir Stefano Savona (Italy)

SognoIl Mondo Il Venerdì, Dir: Pasquale Marrazzo (Italy)

The Anchorage, Dir: C.W. Winter and Anders Edstrom (United States/Sweden)

The Marsdreamers, Dir: Richard Dindo (Switzerland/France)

Todos Mienten, Dir: Matias Pineiro (Argentina)

Un Transport En Commun, Dir: Dyana Gaye (France)

"Todos mienten", de Matías Piñeiro (Variety review)

A Revolver Films and El Pampero Cine presentation, in association with Universidad del Cine. Produced by Ivan Granovsky, Lionel Braverman, Pablo Chernov, Maria del Carmen Fernandez Montes.
Directed, written by Matias Pineiro.

With: Romina Paula, Maria Villar, Julia Martinez Rubio, Pilar Gamboa, Julian Larquier Tellarini, Julian Tello, Esteban Bigliardi, Esteban Lamothe.

By Robert Koehler

An elaborate game involving literature, a book draft, paintings and a family tree conceals a metaphorical fable on Argentina's history of dictatorship and progressivism in Matias Pineiro's "They All Lie." A circle of young people fall into a situation that starts with an innocent enough bonfire and ends with a whole house being torched, as personal peeves take on greater gravity. The full cleverness of the pic's conception will appeal most to those who know the reference points, though lovers of classic European art cinema could prove an audience at select fests, if not beyond.

Following up on his stylish and sharp debut, "The Stolen Man," 26-year-old Pineiro has emerged not only as one of his country's most interesting younger filmmakers, but also as an artist obsessed with Argentina's key 19th-century political enemies: populist strongman dictator Juan Martin de Rosas and progressive pol and literary leader Domingo Sarmiento. In "They All Lie," Sarmiento's great-great-granddaughter, Helena (Romina Paula, "Stolen") is on a mission to destroy de Rosas' lineage, repped here by arrogantly successful painter Joaquin Martin de Rosas (Esteban Lamothe).

But Helena's deeper intentions remain concealed, as the film devotes much of its time to the rapid, fierce verbal interactions of her friends, who are congregated at her family house outside Buenos Aires. The mood is tinged with post-graduate goofing off, sexual warfare and baroque, Jacques Rivette-style game-playing.

Take Monica (Maria Villar, also from "Stolen"), who seems to do little at first but play guitar and sing, but who later plays possum to spy on Helena, whom she learns is planning to leave everyone behind at the house. Or, take Isabel (busy thesp Julia Martinez Rubio), a painter who claims she's responsible for the work Joaquin maintains is his own.

In a brilliantly staged sequence, with Pineiro's roving camera acting as guide and observer, the friends discuss what sounds like a completely fictitious (though possibly true) account of how a Sarmiento family woman is born every eight years, and how de Rosas males are prone to keeling over after a child is born. While the extended scene seems at first to go on too long, it actually sets up the film's unexpected finale.

"They All Lie" thus weaves together a fluid, often fun, sometimes deliberately confusing game on one hand, and a fable of the history of Argentine political power on the other. The pic could even be read as a commentary on the current regime, with highly controversial President Cristina Kirchner repping de Rosas, and her opposition standing in for Sarmiento. While this element will carry considerable impact for Argentine viewers, the subtleties will be lost on others.Typical of the films produced by indie outfit El Pampero Cine, the acting is charged by a whip-smart, deadpan approach, overflowing with talk that seems to be delivered at the speed of sound, if not light. Paula, Villar and Rubio dominate the games from start to finish, with Lamothe making an impact near the very end.

Pineiro likes to refer to himself, in the French sense, as an "amateur," but the vid lensing, editing and overall production sense are undoubtedly pro, and the film has an overall texture that feels closest to indie French and German filmmaking. Plentiful chapter title cards become too cute by half.

Camera (color, HD), Fernando Lockett; editor, Delfina Castagnino; production designer, Ana Cambre; sound, Daniela Ale, Emilio Iglesias; assistant director, Alejo Franzetti. Reviewed at Buenos Aires Film Festival, April 28, 2009. Running time: 75 MIN.