Argentine cinema shines in a Latin American film cycle at the MoMA Garden – Télam

History of fear, de Benjamn Naishtat.

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With “Shaven”, Rejtman – promoter of the cinema renaissance in Argentina – not only made himself known, but also promoted a radical turn in the aesthetic vector of Latin American cinematography, while Lisandro Alonso, with “Freedom” (2001) presented his particular style.

Mariano Llins -who will be exhibited “Spas”-, has been confirmed as avant-garde artist and cult author with Extraordinary Stories (2014) and The Flower (2016), and for his part, Benjamn Naishtat – “History of fear” -, is a shrewd renovator of the thriller who, through brilliant scenes, has explored terror in Argentine political history, as the title of the film warns programmed.

-Tlam: What has been the selection criteria for the film series Twenty by twenty?

-Carlos A. Gutirrez: While researching for the cycle, my colleague Josh Siegel, curator of the MoMA Film Department, and I realized that several iconic raw pears by key Latin American directors had never been released in theaters in New York. York. From there, we decided to focus on presenting 20 of these titles – the number coinciding with the 20th anniversary of our organization – of directors whose careers have been championed by Cinema Tropical in these last two decades.

The Latin American panorama also includes “From Thursday to Sunday”, by the Chilean Dominga Sotomayor, “El salvavidas”, by Maite Alberdi, “The smallest place” by the Salvadorian Tatiana Huenzo, “Santa Teresa and other stories” by the Dominican Nelson Carlo by Los Santos Arias and “Gente de bien”, by the Colombian Franco Lolli, among other films.

– T: What days of this set of movies?

– CA: The selected films – from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Mexico and Uruguay – are not only artistically relevant and influential in Latin America, but also internationally, as the region has become a major epicenter of world cinema in recent decades, launching the careers of many notable filmmakers. I would add that most of the movies in the show are forgotten jewels.

-T: What are the main characteristics of the selected Argentine films?

-CG: There are five Argentine scriptwriters-directors in our program (Matas Pieiro, Lisandro Alonso, Martn Rejtman, Benjamn Naishtat, Mariano Llins), who bear witness to the key role that the South American country has played in the revitalization of Latin American cinema at the international level. . These five films – as well as the other 20 in the show – defy easy characterization as they offer different and exciting narrative and aesthetic approaches. As a group, I would say that these films offer compelling evidence of the ways in which these young generations of filmmakers have rebelled against outdated notions of Latin American identity and traditional film tropes, creatively experimenting with new ways of expressing and imagining them. different realities of this heterogeneous part of the world.

-T: How would you describe the spirit or idiosyncrasy of this group of selected Argentine films?

-CG: Each of the five Argentine films in our cycle – in addition to the other two co-produced films – have played an important role and opened up interesting possibilities for local Argentine and Latin American filmmakers, influencing many younger directors. For example, the cult film Rapado, by Rejtman, paved the way for the appearance of the New Argentine Cinema of the late nineties and early eighties, of which La libertad is an example par excellence. Llins, Pieiro and Naishtat have also incorporated other narrative devices and have pointed in new directions. Diversity is a key element in these films, and all the filmmakers in the series have basically worked on tight budgets, which is also a common factor in the selected titles. We are especially pleased to inaugurate this cycle with a special outdoor screening of Matas Pieiro’s 2007 debut opera, “The Stolen Man.”

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