By Section

There were some years when we would have a lot of trouble finding films for this competition. Although, to be more precise, the thing that we couldn’t find was dialogues between the films, the aesthetic and production systems, the generational clashes, the hyperrealism and artifice crossing each other in heavy traffic. In short, the politics of cinema. This year we’ve selected fourteen films. Half of them are first films. Four are second films. And three others were made by “veterans” who have already made four or five films. They don’t show the reality of Argentine cinema but instead expose cinema to multiple realities. This Argentine Competition may be debated, but it can never cease to establish tensions. It’s strong because it is diverse. Power lines. Films that bet on genres ( Masterplan, Villegas), or pulverize them ( Cassandra). Documentary logics that twist expectations, turning perspectives into politics ( 17 monumentos), families into fiction ( Papirosen), memory into a malleable obsession ( La chica del sur), or heterodoxy into a system of narrative lines and rational labyrinths ( Ante la ley). The geographics of silence ( Igual si llueve) or words ( Mis sucios 3 tonos). Underlying sexual tension ( El espacio entre los dos), which can be explicit ( Al cielo) or symbolic ( Salsipuedes). Cinema as interrogation ( Dioramas) or savage poetry ( Dromómanos). Discoveries, changes of direction, confirmations. All arguable evaluations aside, this cinema is alive. Sergio Wolf
Read the full story in the Festival catalogue.