News

As of tomorrow, Thursday, the Festival will offer a varied program of special activities including shorts, unforgettable films, well-kept secrets, surprises, good music at the end of the day, talks and presentations at the Meeting Point of the Centro Cultural Recoleta, with free admission. This will be the case, for example, with the “100 Extra Hours” marathon at Cronopios Theater, including a compilation of shorts made by cable channel I.Sat; the “video store” section in which a group of star guests present their favorite films; a "variety show" that brings together all kinds of films; “Pozo Negro”, a well of hidden wonders; and a special surprise every day. And there is more – the already classic music series called “A Little Night Music,” which will offer great concerts at El Aleph Auditorium at each day’s end. Pay attention, check out the programming on this website and stop by the C.C. Recoleta. You’ve been warned.

Today is the last day for purchasing your tickets in advance: either online on this website or in person at Casa de la Cultura (Av. de Mayo 575) and Village Recoleta (Junín and Vicente López, 4th floor), from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. With the Festival underway, ticket sale will continue online and at the box offices of the Village Recoleta Mall (ground floor), Village Caballito (Rivadavia and Acoyte), Teatro San Martín (Av. Corrientes 1530, 10th floor), Malba Cine (Av. Figueroa Alcorta 3415), Cine Cosmos-UBA (Av. Corrientes 2046) and ArteMultiplex Belgrano (Av. Cabildo 2829). That is, at all the Festival’s screening venues, except for Fundación Proa.

Bonanza Muchinsci – a big, bearded, gray-haired, fat-cheeked man – is the protagonist of this film that explores the every-day life of a slum family, without prejudice and with affinity to the character. This is Bonanza, the film by Ulises Rosell that makes up the must-see selection of "Bafici+Fipresci x 15", the section that celebrates the Festival’s 15th anniversary in line with a sort of rebirth of Argentine film d’auteur. "A unique and unclassifiable film, which portrays, with no need to explain anything, the urban and wild life of a family that seems to be apart from everything but at the same time in the middle of a special universe, at the center of attention," wrote Martín Perez on Página/12 at the time of its premiere in 2003. The film will be screened today at 6 p.m. and next Thursday, April 18 at 10 p.m. at Malba Cine (Av. Figueroa Alcorta 3415). Tickets can be purchased on this website or in person at the box office of the museum, from noon onwards.

Mañana jueves 11 a las 20 h en el Anfiteatro del Parque Centenario, habrá una proyección especial de la película 8 pasos adelante, dirigida por Selene Colombo. El filme trata el tema de los Trastornos del Espectro Autista (TEA) de una manera poco convencional. Hoy en día, los TEA afectan a 1 niño de cada 50 (según las estadísticas del CDC en EE.UU, 2013) y son un fenómeno en aumento. La película explora el punto de vista de los niños y las familias, y muestra el trabajo llevado a cabo por PANAACEA, una asociación civil fundada en Buenos Aires a fines del 2011. Una proyección que vale la pena presenciar.

The documentary Giuseppe Tornatore - Ogni film un’opera prima (Every film is my first film) is a captivating portrait of the life and work of the Italian director, author of the famous Cinema Paradiso but, above all, a true cinema lover. This is demonstrated by his testimony, which confirms what is stated in the title: a film director who experiences and feels every one of his movies as if it were the first one he makes – something to be valued, regardless of one’s individual opinion about his filmography. There are tickets available for the screenings on Friday 12 at 4.35 p.m. at Arte Multiplex Belgrano, Monday 15 at 6.45 p.m. and Thursday 18 at 8.35 p.m. at Village Caballito. Tickets can be purchased on this website or in person at Casa de la Cultura (Av. de Mayo 575, Monday to Friday, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.) and at the Village Recoleta movie complex (Vicente López and Junín, 4th floor, every day from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.).

The documentary The Lebanese Rocket Society tells the story of a research group that, in the 1960s, launched the first rocket from the Arab world to space. Through an exhaustive investigation that includes valuable archive material, the directors tell this little-known story of a country that was the region’s pioneer in this field (and many others) but unfortunately became hostage to a never-ending war that destroyed any chance of progress. There are tickets available for the screenings on Wednesday 11 at 6.40 p.m. at Village Caballito, Thursday 12 at 7 p.m. and Friday 13 at 1.35 p.m. at Arteplex Belgrano. Tickets can be purchased on this website or in person at Casa de la Cultura (Av. de Mayo 575, Monday to Friday, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.) and at the Village Recoleta movie complex (Vicente López and Junín, 4th floor, every day from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.).

The ticket presale already confirms it, as many of the films in this section are now sold out. And this is due to its highly attractive programming, with major names of the international film scene (Kiarostami, Assayas, Oliveira, Von Trotta, Kitano and many others) and their latest films, in addition to small spotlights featuring films produced in Brazil, Israel and Argentina. Two gems stand out amid a rich and generous menu of films. One of them is Mekong Hotel (screenings with tickets currently available: Thursday 11 at 2.05 p.m. and Monday 15 at 4.25 p.m.), by Thai director and 2010 Palme d’Or winner Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who has become a BAFICI classic. Mekong Hotel is a visually stunning portrait of a movie shooting on the terraces and rooms of a hotel near the famous river that separates Thailand from Laos (the same Martin Sheen sailed up in Apocalypse Now). The other is Centro histórico (screenings: Thursday 11 at 3.15 p.m. and Tuesday 16 at 3.40 p.m.), dedicated to the Portuguese city of Guimaraes, designated European Capital of Culture 2012, with four episodes directed by big filmmakers: Aki Kaurismaki, Pedro Costa, Víctor Erica and Manoel de Oliveira.

“I don’t believe in a film history. This collection is a jigsaw puzzle, a way of suggesting that all films, from the very first ones, are contemporary to us,” said film critic and director André S. Labarthe, one of the co-creators (with Janine Bazin, widow of the influential film scholar André Bazin) of the television series Cineastas de nuestro tiempo (filmmakers of our time), which aired on French television between 1964 and 1972, and was later repeated by German-French channel ARTE under the name Cine, de nuestro tiempo (cinema of our time)between 1984 and 2006. A generous portion of this valuable documentary material, dedicated to great directors of all times such as Jean Renoir, John Cassavetes, David Lynch and Martin Scorsese, will be showcased in one special “Focus” of this year’s BAFICI. This series of portrait films highlights the fact that filmmakers from different regions and times have achieved the same degree of reflection, interests and difficulties involved in the creative process. As a result, here is one of the most important documentary records of all times and a vindication of the film d’auteur and its forms. Another programming treat that BAFICI offers to its audience.

As an extension to the “Avant-garde and Genre” competition, which is one of the new features of this year’s Festival, this section offers a must-see menu of film classics that fall into the category known as “retro”. Some of them, for example, are The Fly, by David Cronenberg; The King of Comedy, by Martín Scorsese (photo); The Breakfast Club, by John Hughes; and They Live, by John Carpenter. The list also includes productions of Farsa, an enterprising Argentine company that has created a new-old type of cinema: that which is found in the action-packed trilogy Plaga zombie. And there’s also room to revisit some titles manufactured in the film factory of the German Democratic Republic, that is, Socialist Germany. They are grouped under the title “Stardust Memories: Socialist Sci-Fi from East Germany” and promise spatial adventures to the beat of “The Internationale.” All of these films are surely appealing in one way or another.

The Professional Area of the Festival, in collaboration with APIMA (Independent Audiovisual Media Producers Association), will offer consultancy appointments for national projects in progress. These sessions will be conducted by outstanding professionals of APIMA, who have a long track record in independent filmmaking. In order to apply for the one-on-one interviews, you must fill out a form available on this website.