Argentine cinema, setting and end of cycle, think filmmakers and critics

Filmmakers, media workers and critics reflect on the same questions. Benjamin Naishtat, Clarisa Navas, Tatiana Mazu, Patricio Escobar, Ximena Gonzalez, Alejandro Rath, Ezequiel Radusky, Violeta Bruck, José Campusano, Lucia Casado, Gabi Jaime, Ana Fraile, Gustavo Alonso and the critic Roger Koza. Diversity of forms of production, perspectives and experiences attacking the same problems.

The initial impulse to make this series of articles that we compile here was the certainty that the current situation of “filmmaking crisis” in Argentina is located at a non-metaphorical limit point. Although “the crisis” is the nature in which independent films are always made.

With a diversity of voices, opening the debate, that turning point was approached by all the participants of this exchange, whose works express a multiplicity of experiences, aesthetics and concerns. Which makes it more interesting to read them attacking the same problems, although the perspectives and outputs are different, part of an ongoing debate.

The “novelty” of the current crisis is the coordination in a sharp descending line of the triad “production, distribution and exhibition” that is the basis of the circuit of audiovisual works. Historically the problem was always the last two factors controlled by “the majors”(The big Hollywood production companies) who leave the overwhelming majority of the cinema we produce as exiled works in their own land.

Even in this adverse situation, the production had “waves” that evidenced the persistent desire to tell our stories, with or without state aid. This included mobilizations and achievements such as access to the promotion of the Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts (INCAA) through the documentary digital channel in 2007, without the need for “antecedents” or having a company behind it, and with selected selection committees. by the sector associations. Away from these needs, the large production companies have always found themselves allied to the international film multinationals, negotiating a part of the “cultural market” saturated with North American products, without forgetting to make use of this objective of public funds.

In this scheme, the pandemic that broke out in 2020 did not invent anything, it accelerated the transformation processes that had been brewing and for which there was no contingency plan.

With regard to production, there was an almost total brake on work in what is known as “industry”, with some reactivations in 2021 related to fiction and series, but now accompanied by greater precariousness. To face these direct consequences of the pandemic, there was no substantial favorable policy on the part of the government for technicians. And even more, after a year and a half of the government that had promised to dismantle the Macrista heritage, the path of the Film Institute can be considered substantially a continuity of the Macrista adjustment and restriction policies. The claims and demands of the sector are not listened to. Although the big winners of the moment are, the international platforms of streaming.

The “Argentine Content” plan announced in April by President Alberto Fernández himself together with Tristán Bauer and Lucrecia Cardoso, among other officials, union leaders and accompanied by important businessmen in the sector such as Adrián Suar, pointed in this regard, granting tax exemptions to the big platforms like Netflix, Amazon, HBO; and negotiations and plans were opened to “guide production” according to its economic interests and “content”. They embody the same war of the old women “majors”By other means, but with the same aggressive earnings.

The red N expanded enormously and today it has at least 65% of the importation of “audiovisual products” to the country, this is about 5 million unique subscribers. And different studies indicate that only 3% of the “contents” offered are of national origin. Although streaming allows for a bit more diversity, the main slice of the cake is obviously North American cuisine and the algorithmic usher loves to offer it. While the opening of theaters on June 18 is another example of the breaking point, simply the Hollywood tanks went out in search of lost time. They raised the occupancy of screens to almost 100% under the “covid protocol” (while the only “national production” is a Patagonik tank).

As a corollary to this situation, the national government maintains the expiration date for the year 2022 of the “Film Development Fund” which would remove INCAA’s own resources. This would be a definitive blow to the forms of production financing that independent cinema can access, even with a thousand obstacles. This situation is denounced by multiple associations that are managing the repeal of that article, but the truth is that it depends on the current ruling party to do so: the Frente de Todos can put it into treatment today and get the majority to approve it, and it does not.

Who writes, as part of the different views and debates in progress, considers that in this script any relationship with Latin American history is allowed and it is desirable to remember it. It is impossible that a strong crisis of the so-called “symbolic productions” does not accompany the exponential growth of inequality in our continent, the concentration of wealth and the descent into poverty of 22 million more people only in the first year of the pandemic. If making movies, books, theater, music, art, was always a problem for the inhabitants of the … global south? The underdeveloped countries? The semi-colonies? Now we are at a limit moment not only for the cinema, and in which all ambiguities should be discarded.

In 1978 Jorge Sanjines recalled that “his first serious film” had seen the light in 1963, but that in those 15 years “most of the films thought and dreamed of had remained on paper or inside our thoughts, waiting resignedly the day they could exist. ” However, he was excited because “a few” had managed to reach their audiences and “caused concern and reflection.” Contrary to any resignation, I bring the quote only to remind us of our South American destiny. The generation of filmmakers of the 60s and 70s, both the ultra politicized and the less, were clear about the existence of imperialism in the region, an idea that allows us to think better about the enemy we are facing than from the inconsistent “asymmetric relations” or “hybridizations” that fall on “developing” countries.

In the history of our cinema there is an enormous wealth of experiences and debates that should be brought back to light because they faced the same problems although in different situations. In the 60s and 70s the problems of imperialism were debated (without euphemisms) its interference in distribution and exhibition, including the problem of language and the “profane call of the world” that those who decide to make films even at the end of the world receive. Experiences should be revisited, critically of course, but not discounted in the debates. I refer to Fernando Birri, Glouber Rocha, Santiago Alvarez, Jorge Sanjines, Raymundo Gleyzer and Pino Solanas from these lands, JL Godard, Chris Marker and many more. But that topic exceeds this already too long introduction.

Whoever writes speaks for himself, without pretending that the opinions expressed here color the other answers, which are also very clear. At this time the diversity of voices and perspectives is important, to open the debate.

With this idea, the questions we addressed were three:

1) Beyond the crisis that the pandemic brought, it can be said that there is a continuity of adjustment in the cinematographic area. Production limits are growing and there is no talk of exhibition and preservation. This also includes the validity of the expiration date on the promotion that promoted macrismo in 2017 and is widely denounced by different associations. What is your opinion on this?

2) From various sectors of the right, but also in the facts from the management of INCAA, it is pointed out that fewer films are filmed and only by large production companies, attacking diversity and independent cinema. What is your opinion on this?

3) Streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon, HBO have been gaining space, even granting them tax exemptions. What could be the cultural, language and content consequences of national productions?

The responses of the participants are offered in full.

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Argentine cinema, continued adjustment? Opinion Clarisa Navas, Tatiana Mazu, Benjamin Naishtat and Patricio Escobar

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