13th BAFICI News

With the presence of the 78-year-old Japanese master, his muse actress Mariko Okada, Arts Graduate Violeta Bava, and film critics Diego Brodersen and Juan Manuel Domínguez, the book Kijû Yoshida: el cine como destrucción (published by BAFICI) will be presented today, Wednesday, at 6.30pm at the Meeting Point (on the mezzanine level of the Abasto Shopping Mall). From many points of view, the book analyzes the work and views of the Japanese director and also includes part of his theoretical works on his cinema and the cinema by other creators. The book is on sale at the festival’s Information Desk, at 30 pesos.

At the end of today, Wednesday, BAFICI has a fine musical event in store for film lovers. At 10.30pm (at the auditorium of the Meeting Point), as part of the “Little Night Music” concert series, it will be the time to see Acorazado Potemkin, the band composed of Juan Pablo Fernández, Luciano Esain and Federico Ghazarossian (photo). A while before that, with tickets sold out, there will be a screening of the documentary ¿Qué sois ahora?, by Mariano Goldgrob and Gustavo Galuppo, about the history and dissolution of Pequeña Orquesta Reincidentes, a unique Argentine rock band from the nineties whose singer and lyric writer was, precisely, Fernández.

The “Modern Classics” sub-section in “Panorama,” featuring recently recovered or restored film material, offers a rich, diverse line-up of great films from the—big and small—history of 20th-century cinema. Among them, Metrópolis by Fritz Lang or The Bowler and the Bunnet, the only film Sean Connery directed in his life. And also Il gattopardo (photo), a masterpiece by the Italian Luchino Visconti starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, dating from 1963, which will be screened in 35mm just as it was premiered in Cannes 2010 this Tuesday 12, 7.00 pm at Hoyts 4. Other screenings are on Wednesday 13, 6.30 pm and Sunday 17, 9.00 pm at Atlas Santa Fe 1.

Rossana Manfredi (Expotoons Animation Festival Director) and Marlena Nascimento da Silva (Full Professor of Audiovisual Design at the University of Buenos Aires) will be guest speakers at the lecture titled “La animación argentina y sus posibilidades de crecimiento” (Argentine Animation and the Possibilities of Growth) to be held this coming Tuesday at 3.00pm at the Auditorium of the festival’s Meeting Point, on the mezzanine level of the Abasto Shopping Mall. According to Manfredi—in charge of Expotoons; its fourth edition was held in Buenos Aires, in December 2011—this area is going through an interesting productive period with good prospects for international expansion.

The Black Power Mixtape: 1967-1975, by Swedish director Göran Olsson, is one of the jewels of the 2011 BAFICI program. In a series of images and testimonies from the past, the film features unique footage of the activities of the radical group Black Panthers, the strong words of its founding fathers Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton, together with other figures who fought for civil rights in the United States at the end of the sixties. Among them, the thought and image of philosophy professor Angela Davis (photo) stands out. Born from the curiosity of Swedish national television for that emerging movement—including images that depict everyday life in the ghettos—the documentary goes further beyond and explores what happened to those aspirations. It also features prominent figures in African-American culture today: among them, actor-singer Harry Belafonte, professor Robin D. G. Kelley, poetess Sonia Sanchez and musicians Erykah Badu, Talib Kweli and ?uestlove. Today, Monday, is an excellent opportunity to see this film at 6.15 pm at Arteplex Belgrano: tickets go on sale at the movie theater at 10.00 am.

“Andrew Haigh is an emerging talent destined to become the main event,” read the title of the English newspaper The Guardian after his successful participation—in more ways than one—with Weekend, the second film by this young English director, at the multidisciplinary festival South by Southwest 2011. Only a month after winning the “Emerging Visions” audience award, earning critical acclaim, and signing for distribution in the United States through the prestigious company IFC Sundance Selects, Weekend arrives in Buenos Aires. Today, Monday, at 11.00pm at Arteplex Belgrano (also on Thursday 14 at 3.30pm), BAFICI presents this atypical romantic comedy that depicts the weekend that two English young men spend together. As simple and complex as that.

On Sunday night, the awards of the 8th Edition of the Buenos Aires Lab (BAL) were announced and handed out to the winning films of the sections “Co-Production Meetings” and “Work in Progress.” In “Co-Production Meetings,” the winners were Sombie by Santiago Fillol (ARTE award), El primero de la familia by Carlos Leiva (first Cinecolor-Kodak award), Los hongos by Oscar Ruiz Navia (second Cinecolor-Kodak award), La guerra submarina by Alejo Moguilansky (FIDMarseille-FIDLab award), and A memoria e o musculo do imaginaçao by Flavia Castro. Moreover, Argentine director Ivan Fund (Me perdí hace una semana) received the CPH-DOX award and will participate in the next DOX:LAB to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in November 2011.

There’s something special about Sundays in Buenos Aires, as the cultural capital of Latin America provides a wide variety of things to do; and on this particular Sunday—thanks to BAFICI and the free “Open Air Cinema” series—the city offers an attractive array of fine documentaries about music and football, animated short films for children, and two world-class European films. The cherry on top of this afternoon of great cinema outdoors will come as part of a Little Bafici special screening at 7.30 pm, at Plaza San Martín de Tours, in Recoleta. The films to be exhibited are shorts selected from the 2010 edition of the Expotoons Animation Festival and Gadkij utenok (The Ugly Duckling, photo), which is the Russian version of the classic tale about the ugly ducking, a wonder of the stop motion technique directed by Garri Bardin.

The Buenos Aires Lab (BAL), the meeting point of young Latin American producers and filmmakers with professionals from the international film industry, ends today, Sunday, with the awards ceremony for the sections “Bridges,” “Work in Progress” and “Co-production Meetings.” The ceremony will be held on Sunday at 8.00 pm at the Auditorium of the BAFICI Meeting Point, on the mezzanine level of the Abasto Shopping Mall. Please be reminded that entrance is free but tickets must be picked up at the festival’s Information Desk, located in the Plaza del Zorzal of the shopping mall, starting from 10.00 am. Once again, BAL lives up to its reputation of providing great (intangible and concrete) stimulus for young filmmakers, such as Paraguay’s Pablo Lamar (photo), award-winner for his film La última tierra in 2010.

Today, Saturday, is the first weekend of Open Air Cinema, a series of free public screenings at Pasaje Carlos Gardel and Plaza Cataluña, with a varied and attractive programme. Here is today’s line-up for Pasaje Carlos Gardel (on the corner with Anchorena street and opposite the Abasto Shopping Mall): at 3.00 pm, Yuki & Nina by Nobuhiro Suwa and Hippolite Girardot; at 5.00 pm, El ilusionista, by Sylvain Chomet; at 7.00 pm, Una semana solas by Celina Murga. And at 7.30 pm, Medianeras (photo) by Gustavo Taretto will be screened at Plaza Cataluña (located opposite the Embassy of France, on the corner of Cerrito and Arroyo),