Chronicling the devastating effects of agribusiness on his homeland, veteran documentarian Fernando E. Solanas (The Hour of the Furnaces) delivers a militant cri de coeur against pesticides and other harmful farming methods that have been implemented in Argentina for several decades, often with the collusion of the government.
Shot in a multitude of locations throughout the country, from villages displaced by soy plantations to maternity wards treating malformed babies poisoned by agrochemicals, A Journey to Fumigated Towns (Viaje a los Pueblos Fumigados) offers ample proof that mass corporate agriculture is the wrong way to go for this land or any...
Shot in a multitude of locations throughout the country, from villages displaced by soy plantations to maternity wards treating malformed babies poisoned by agrochemicals, A Journey to Fumigated Towns (Viaje a los Pueblos Fumigados) offers ample proof that mass corporate agriculture is the wrong way to go for this land or any...
- 2/18/2018
- by Jordan Mintzer
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
I have been visiting Cuba since 2000 when I went there to perfect my Spanish. My Spanish is still far from perfect but I have grown to love Cuba. Since I went there to learn and happened upon the Havana Film Festival which is held this year December 3rd to 13th, I have returned to the Festival every year and have found a world of great talent which increasingly is raring to get out into the world.
Ivan Giroud is a part of that Festival world and actually is now its most important part (aside from the films and filmmakers that is). Starting from zero, he is now considered one of the most qualified specialists in Latin American Cinema.
Read on to see who he is and how he sees Cuban and Latin American Cinema.
How did you get into film?
I was born in Havana in 1957.
I have loved cinema since I was very young. However I did not study film as there was no cinema school in Cuba until 1986.
I had a general education and graduated in Civil
Engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Havana in 1981.
I am self-taught in film – what’s that called?
You are an autodidact.
Yes, an autodidact.
In the 70s, Cuba had the best cinema in the world and the best posters as well. These posters remained the finest posters in the world throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s.
Yes, they are silk-screened and on display and for sale. I myself treasure the poster of one o my favorite fims, “Suite Habana” by Fernando Pérez .
In my last year working as a civil engineer I contacted Icaic seeking employment. In 1981 friends in film, like Daisy Granados, the star of “Cecilia” gave me work on her film. I met her husband, Pastor Vega, a filmmaker who was also the first Director of the Festival from 1979 to 1990, a post he took after finishing “Portrait of Teresa” Pastor said ‘Come work with me’ and so in 1988 I entered the industry at the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (Icaic), as a senior specialist and organizer of Cuban and Latin American cinema destined for Europe and North America. The job was like a programming job.
The International Festival of the New Latin American Film in Havana (aka Havana Film Festival) had sections for auteurs, socialist countries, American films and docs. It had the best films, was the preeminent film festival for Latin American cinema and was the only market where all of Latin America gathered to consider the films. It still remains a gathering place for the cineastes throughout Latin America and includes a well-respected coterie of the pioneers of Latin American cinema who created the films that best defined Latin America Cinema in the 60s and then were silenced by the dictatorships which prevailed until the 90s….like Raúl Ruiz, Aldo Francia, Patricio Guzmán and Miguel Littin from Chile, Glauber Rocha, Nelson Pereira dos Santos from Brazil Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino from Argentina.
At the time of the Soviet collapse in 1991 (known in Cuba as “The Special Period”), I entered the Directorate of the Festival and Vega left and returned to filmmaking. There were other Directors, and in 1994 I became the Director. Alfredo Guevera, the public face of the festival for many years came back to Cuba and became President; we worked together from 1994 to 2010, my first term as the Festival Director.
The Special Period was very, very difficult, the worst of times for everyone and for all Latin American cinema. Brazilian cinema nearly disappeared. The state film organization Embrafilme had been producing 800 films a year and that disappeared for a long time.
Argentina declined in the 90s. Mexico remained active but also declined in the quality of its films. When I began as Director, Cuba was very poor, both economically and creatively. But there was also a generational change and I learned that every decline gives birth to a new generation and new creativity, and so it was.
Schools of films began training new talent. Eictv, the International Film School, funded by Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Nobel Prize money opened its doors in 1987. New schools opened in Argentina and Brazil as well. The Havana Film Festival stood as a testimony to this growing generation as it showed the first works and shorts of the likes of Trapero and others in whom you could see new Latam talent developing.
The Havana Film Festival catalogs are a history of cinema as it was the biggest programmer of films. It still gives the best view of Latam cinema today. It is still important as it gives a full picture of Latam cinema and the people in Latam cinema. Eictv is producing the most interesting film makers in the world. For 37 years the Festival was the best, though today there are not many Latam fests. This one was different. You could get to know the whole cineaste community. It never lost a generation; the older members still make movies and the festival helps them to be seen and known.
In 2010 I went to Madrid where I spent five years. In 2002 I began working on a Dictionary of Iberoamerican Cinema. This 1,000 page book was finished in 2008. From 2008 to 2010 I was the director of the festival from Spain. I also ran an arthouse theater in Madrid, the Sala Berlanga, named after a very important Spanish director a little younger than Bunuel.
In 2012 I wanted to return to Cuba where I worked on the Cuban Dictionary of Film. In April Guevera died and Icaic pulled me back to be President and Director.
Since May 2013 I have been Director of the Casa del Festival and President of the International Festival of New Cinema in Havana.
What about the filmmaker Pavel Giroud? Is he your brother?
No, he’s my nephew. He came into the business a different way, through design. He began producing music clips and then went to Eictv. From a painter he evolved into a moviemaker. He has made three films. His newest, “El Acompañante” (“The Companion”) won the best project award at San Sebastian’s 2nd Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum in 2013.
This is Giroud’s third solo film after “The Silly Age” and “Omerta”. The producers: Luis Pacheco’s Jaguar Films is Panama’s best-known production/services company. The Cuban producer is Lia Rodriguez who also runs the industry section of the Havana Film Festival. It is also produced by the Cuba/ Panama-based Arete Audiovisual, Panama’s Jaguar Films, Venezuela’s Trampolin Impulso Creativo and France’s Tu Vas Voir (Edgard Tenembaum) who produced Walter Salles’ “The Motorcycle Diaries”.
Set in 1988 Cuba, “The Companion” is about a friendship between a disgraced boxer forced to serve as a warden – in Cuban government jingo-speak, a “companion” – for an HIV victim.
What is different about the current state of your festival?
Now there are many Latin American Film Festivals, but ours was and still is different because it allows you to know the whole cineaste community. We never lost a generation. The older generation still is making movies and the younger generation is very present. The Festival helps make them known.
What about the new developments between USA and Cuba?
That is the most asked question today.
We have always had U.S. films and U.S. citizens have always visited in cultural exchanges. We’ve had Gregory Peck, Jack Lemmon in the earliest years. We’ve invited Arthur Penn, Sean Penn, John Sayles, the Coen Brothers. Danny Glover and Benecio del Toro are frequent visitors. Annette Benning and Koch Hawk of the Academy were guests. We were always well connected to the U.S. independents so that is nothing new.
The change is that It will be easier for Americans to visit and to learn.
When I went to Cuba the first time, I was actually surprised to see so many Afro-Cubans. For some reason I assumed USA was the only nation with former slaves. I should have realized the Spanish also traded in slaves but only when I was in Cuba did I “get” it. Now I see the world so differently.
In Cuba black and white races mixed and the mixture (the mulatto) is what is a Cuban today. U.S. has segregation by and large. Latinos live together, Asian, African-Americans are all separated and that creates a totally different mentality.
I am very interested in African Diaspora films and Cuba has a lot. I have always enjoyed the documentaries. You can’t see them anywhere else.
This year there is a great documentary, “They are We" (“Ellos son nosotros”). It is anthropological about the Cuban town Matanza. Matanza has some of the best music in Cuba. It investigates their African roots in Sierra Leone and identifies ancestors and where they were from. Determined to find the exact origin of songs coming from there, the Australian filmmaker - researcher spent two years showing images throughout the region in Sierra Leonie until he confirmed that the Cubans were singing songs similar to the language of an ethnic group made extinct because of the slave trade.
I’ll send you the BBC article. (Read it here)
Thank you Ivan for this hour of your time. I am so happy to have finally connected with you after seeing you for so many years in Havana and in Toronto (where you stay with Helga Stephenson, the subject of an earlier post: Read it here )
More on Ivan:
Ivan has provided advice to other Latin American film festivals and has collaborated on research projects and screenplays, as well as in the production of theater and classical music. In 2008 he was invited to speak at the seminar Contributions of Latin American cinema to world cinema in the first American Film Congress held in Mexico City in the Congress book stories presented in common 40 years / 50 movies of Latin American cinema, of which he is one of its editors.
He was a visiting professor of the Master in Management of the Film Industry Carlos III University courses in 2010, 2011 and 2012. He is one of four directors of the Dictionary of Latin American Cinema; with Carlos F. Heredero, Eduardo Rodríguez Merchán, Benard da Costa and João project Sgae of Spain, consisting of 10 volumes and 16 thousand entries. Between 2008 and 2012 he was Director of audiovisual programming and Berlanga Room Buñuel Institute Foundation Author of Spain, a period in which he was international adviser Icaic.
Ivan Giroud is a part of that Festival world and actually is now its most important part (aside from the films and filmmakers that is). Starting from zero, he is now considered one of the most qualified specialists in Latin American Cinema.
Read on to see who he is and how he sees Cuban and Latin American Cinema.
How did you get into film?
I was born in Havana in 1957.
I have loved cinema since I was very young. However I did not study film as there was no cinema school in Cuba until 1986.
I had a general education and graduated in Civil
Engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Havana in 1981.
I am self-taught in film – what’s that called?
You are an autodidact.
Yes, an autodidact.
In the 70s, Cuba had the best cinema in the world and the best posters as well. These posters remained the finest posters in the world throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s.
Yes, they are silk-screened and on display and for sale. I myself treasure the poster of one o my favorite fims, “Suite Habana” by Fernando Pérez .
In my last year working as a civil engineer I contacted Icaic seeking employment. In 1981 friends in film, like Daisy Granados, the star of “Cecilia” gave me work on her film. I met her husband, Pastor Vega, a filmmaker who was also the first Director of the Festival from 1979 to 1990, a post he took after finishing “Portrait of Teresa” Pastor said ‘Come work with me’ and so in 1988 I entered the industry at the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (Icaic), as a senior specialist and organizer of Cuban and Latin American cinema destined for Europe and North America. The job was like a programming job.
The International Festival of the New Latin American Film in Havana (aka Havana Film Festival) had sections for auteurs, socialist countries, American films and docs. It had the best films, was the preeminent film festival for Latin American cinema and was the only market where all of Latin America gathered to consider the films. It still remains a gathering place for the cineastes throughout Latin America and includes a well-respected coterie of the pioneers of Latin American cinema who created the films that best defined Latin America Cinema in the 60s and then were silenced by the dictatorships which prevailed until the 90s….like Raúl Ruiz, Aldo Francia, Patricio Guzmán and Miguel Littin from Chile, Glauber Rocha, Nelson Pereira dos Santos from Brazil Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino from Argentina.
At the time of the Soviet collapse in 1991 (known in Cuba as “The Special Period”), I entered the Directorate of the Festival and Vega left and returned to filmmaking. There were other Directors, and in 1994 I became the Director. Alfredo Guevera, the public face of the festival for many years came back to Cuba and became President; we worked together from 1994 to 2010, my first term as the Festival Director.
The Special Period was very, very difficult, the worst of times for everyone and for all Latin American cinema. Brazilian cinema nearly disappeared. The state film organization Embrafilme had been producing 800 films a year and that disappeared for a long time.
Argentina declined in the 90s. Mexico remained active but also declined in the quality of its films. When I began as Director, Cuba was very poor, both economically and creatively. But there was also a generational change and I learned that every decline gives birth to a new generation and new creativity, and so it was.
Schools of films began training new talent. Eictv, the International Film School, funded by Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Nobel Prize money opened its doors in 1987. New schools opened in Argentina and Brazil as well. The Havana Film Festival stood as a testimony to this growing generation as it showed the first works and shorts of the likes of Trapero and others in whom you could see new Latam talent developing.
The Havana Film Festival catalogs are a history of cinema as it was the biggest programmer of films. It still gives the best view of Latam cinema today. It is still important as it gives a full picture of Latam cinema and the people in Latam cinema. Eictv is producing the most interesting film makers in the world. For 37 years the Festival was the best, though today there are not many Latam fests. This one was different. You could get to know the whole cineaste community. It never lost a generation; the older members still make movies and the festival helps them to be seen and known.
In 2010 I went to Madrid where I spent five years. In 2002 I began working on a Dictionary of Iberoamerican Cinema. This 1,000 page book was finished in 2008. From 2008 to 2010 I was the director of the festival from Spain. I also ran an arthouse theater in Madrid, the Sala Berlanga, named after a very important Spanish director a little younger than Bunuel.
In 2012 I wanted to return to Cuba where I worked on the Cuban Dictionary of Film. In April Guevera died and Icaic pulled me back to be President and Director.
Since May 2013 I have been Director of the Casa del Festival and President of the International Festival of New Cinema in Havana.
What about the filmmaker Pavel Giroud? Is he your brother?
No, he’s my nephew. He came into the business a different way, through design. He began producing music clips and then went to Eictv. From a painter he evolved into a moviemaker. He has made three films. His newest, “El Acompañante” (“The Companion”) won the best project award at San Sebastian’s 2nd Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum in 2013.
This is Giroud’s third solo film after “The Silly Age” and “Omerta”. The producers: Luis Pacheco’s Jaguar Films is Panama’s best-known production/services company. The Cuban producer is Lia Rodriguez who also runs the industry section of the Havana Film Festival. It is also produced by the Cuba/ Panama-based Arete Audiovisual, Panama’s Jaguar Films, Venezuela’s Trampolin Impulso Creativo and France’s Tu Vas Voir (Edgard Tenembaum) who produced Walter Salles’ “The Motorcycle Diaries”.
Set in 1988 Cuba, “The Companion” is about a friendship between a disgraced boxer forced to serve as a warden – in Cuban government jingo-speak, a “companion” – for an HIV victim.
What is different about the current state of your festival?
Now there are many Latin American Film Festivals, but ours was and still is different because it allows you to know the whole cineaste community. We never lost a generation. The older generation still is making movies and the younger generation is very present. The Festival helps make them known.
What about the new developments between USA and Cuba?
That is the most asked question today.
We have always had U.S. films and U.S. citizens have always visited in cultural exchanges. We’ve had Gregory Peck, Jack Lemmon in the earliest years. We’ve invited Arthur Penn, Sean Penn, John Sayles, the Coen Brothers. Danny Glover and Benecio del Toro are frequent visitors. Annette Benning and Koch Hawk of the Academy were guests. We were always well connected to the U.S. independents so that is nothing new.
The change is that It will be easier for Americans to visit and to learn.
When I went to Cuba the first time, I was actually surprised to see so many Afro-Cubans. For some reason I assumed USA was the only nation with former slaves. I should have realized the Spanish also traded in slaves but only when I was in Cuba did I “get” it. Now I see the world so differently.
In Cuba black and white races mixed and the mixture (the mulatto) is what is a Cuban today. U.S. has segregation by and large. Latinos live together, Asian, African-Americans are all separated and that creates a totally different mentality.
I am very interested in African Diaspora films and Cuba has a lot. I have always enjoyed the documentaries. You can’t see them anywhere else.
This year there is a great documentary, “They are We" (“Ellos son nosotros”). It is anthropological about the Cuban town Matanza. Matanza has some of the best music in Cuba. It investigates their African roots in Sierra Leone and identifies ancestors and where they were from. Determined to find the exact origin of songs coming from there, the Australian filmmaker - researcher spent two years showing images throughout the region in Sierra Leonie until he confirmed that the Cubans were singing songs similar to the language of an ethnic group made extinct because of the slave trade.
I’ll send you the BBC article. (Read it here)
Thank you Ivan for this hour of your time. I am so happy to have finally connected with you after seeing you for so many years in Havana and in Toronto (where you stay with Helga Stephenson, the subject of an earlier post: Read it here )
More on Ivan:
Ivan has provided advice to other Latin American film festivals and has collaborated on research projects and screenplays, as well as in the production of theater and classical music. In 2008 he was invited to speak at the seminar Contributions of Latin American cinema to world cinema in the first American Film Congress held in Mexico City in the Congress book stories presented in common 40 years / 50 movies of Latin American cinema, of which he is one of its editors.
He was a visiting professor of the Master in Management of the Film Industry Carlos III University courses in 2010, 2011 and 2012. He is one of four directors of the Dictionary of Latin American Cinema; with Carlos F. Heredero, Eduardo Rodríguez Merchán, Benard da Costa and João project Sgae of Spain, consisting of 10 volumes and 16 thousand entries. Between 2008 and 2012 he was Director of audiovisual programming and Berlanga Room Buñuel Institute Foundation Author of Spain, a period in which he was international adviser Icaic.
- 11/19/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
I haven’t traveled all I have to Buenos Aires and back to tell you about how this festival, alongside Mar del Plata and Valdivia (this last one in Chile), form the triad of the most important festivals of Latin America, because if you know about it, you know about it. People that have travelled to Argentina for the past 17 years in April have felt the presence of cinema in the streets—and Buenos Aires is a big city. The importance of a festival that brings over 300 titles, some of them for the first time crossing an ocean, is fundamental for the Latino viewer, as well for those who want to make the effort and come to see the movies that play here. On a closer look, what plays here may seem to be eclectic at times, it is purely due to what seems to be the motto of the festival: discovery.
- 6/8/2015
- by Jaime Grijalba Gómez
- MUBI
Section to also include celebrations of Ingrid Bergman and Orson Welles as well as screenings of The Terminator and Jurassic Park 3D.
Costa-Gavras has been named guest of honour at this year’s Cannes Classics section of the Cannes Film Festival (May 13-24).
The Greek-French film director and producer won the Palme d’or with Missing in 1982, was member of the jury in 1976 that crowned Taxi Driver and picked up the award for best director with Section spéciale in 1975.
The filmmaker will be present for a screening of Z, which won the jury prize in 1969, and has had the original negative scanned in 4k and restored frame by frame in 2K, supervised by Costa-Gavras.
Orson Welles
Marking 100 years since the birth of Orson Welles, Cannes will screen restorations of films from the legendary Us actor, director, writer and producer, who died in 1985.
The titles include his staggering debut Citizen Kane (1941), which has received a 4k restoration completed...
Costa-Gavras has been named guest of honour at this year’s Cannes Classics section of the Cannes Film Festival (May 13-24).
The Greek-French film director and producer won the Palme d’or with Missing in 1982, was member of the jury in 1976 that crowned Taxi Driver and picked up the award for best director with Section spéciale in 1975.
The filmmaker will be present for a screening of Z, which won the jury prize in 1969, and has had the original negative scanned in 4k and restored frame by frame in 2K, supervised by Costa-Gavras.
Orson Welles
Marking 100 years since the birth of Orson Welles, Cannes will screen restorations of films from the legendary Us actor, director, writer and producer, who died in 1985.
The titles include his staggering debut Citizen Kane (1941), which has received a 4k restoration completed...
- 4/29/2015
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
The Cannes Classics 2015 lineup this year features Costa-Gavras, tributes to Ingrid Bergman and Orson Welles, plus Manoel de Oliveira's Visita ou Memórias e Confissões, Kent Jones's new documentary, Hitchcock/Truffaut, and restorations of Luchino Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers, Louis Malle's Elevator to the Gallows, Ousmane Sembène's Black Girl, Lino Brocka's Insiang, Fernando Solanas's Sur, Kenji Mizoguchi's The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum, Kinji Fukasaku's Battles without Honor and Humanity, Miklós Jancsó's The Round-Up, King Hu's A Touch of Zen, Marcel Pagnol's Marius and more. » - David Hudson...
- 4/29/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
The Cannes Classics 2015 lineup this year features Costa-Gavras, tributes to Ingrid Bergman and Orson Welles, plus Manoel de Oliveira's Visita ou Memórias e Confissões, Kent Jones's new documentary, Hitchcock/Truffaut, and restorations of Luchino Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers, Louis Malle's Elevator to the Gallows, Ousmane Sembène's Black Girl, Lino Brocka's Insiang, Fernando Solanas's Sur, Kenji Mizoguchi's The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum, Kinji Fukasaku's Battles without Honor and Humanity, Miklós Jancsó's The Round-Up, King Hu's A Touch of Zen, Marcel Pagnol's Marius and more. » - David Hudson...
- 4/29/2015
- Keyframe
Morocco is set to get an injection of international glamour, as THR just announced that Sharon Stone and Juliette Binoche will be honored at the Marrakech International Film Festival, receiving career tributes when it kicks off at the end of the month. This comes off the heels of a great year on screen for the actresses, with Stone garnering praise for her intense role as porn star Linda Lovelace's mother in "Lovelace" and Binoche as French artist Camille Claudel in "Camille Claudel, 1915." Japanese director Hirokazu Kor-eda and Argentine director Fernando Solanas will also be honored at the festival, which runs from November 29 to December 7. Now in its 13th year, the Marrakech International Film Festival has grown in size and star power, with Martin Scorsese, Marion Cotillard and Patricia Clarkson having already been announced as jury members of this year's edition. Other attendees set to be at the festival include Noomi Rapace,...
- 11/15/2013
- by Clint Holloway
- Indiewire
13th edition of the Marrakech International Film Festival takes place Nov 29-Dec 7.
Ahead of its 13th edition, the Marrakech International Film Festival has announced its tributes for this year’s edition.
The festival will pay tribute to Juliette Binoche [pictured] on Nov 30, Hirokazu Kore-eda on Dec 1, Mohamed Khouyi on Dec 5 and Fernando Solanas on Dec 5.
For more information on this year’s festival, which runs Nov 29-Dec 7, visit its website.
Ahead of its 13th edition, the Marrakech International Film Festival has announced its tributes for this year’s edition.
The festival will pay tribute to Juliette Binoche [pictured] on Nov 30, Hirokazu Kore-eda on Dec 1, Mohamed Khouyi on Dec 5 and Fernando Solanas on Dec 5.
For more information on this year’s festival, which runs Nov 29-Dec 7, visit its website.
- 11/13/2013
- by ian.sandwell@screendaily.com (Ian Sandwell)
- ScreenDaily
Kolkata, Nov 18: While its organisers may make tall claims, the 18th Kolkata International Film Festival turned out be a drab affair in stark contrast to the glamour heavy inaugural ceremony.
The festival, which over the years had attracted eminent cinematic names from around the globe such as Krysztof Zanussi and Fernando Solanas, found itself deprived of the cult figures including home−grown greats.
Legendary names from Bengali cinema world such as actor Soumitra Chatterjee and director Buddhadeb Dasgupta, otherwise regulars at the fest, preferred to give the Nov 10−17 event a miss, while eminent filmmaker Mrinal Sen just made a cameo appearance on the penultimate day.
Though Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee,.
The festival, which over the years had attracted eminent cinematic names from around the globe such as Krysztof Zanussi and Fernando Solanas, found itself deprived of the cult figures including home−grown greats.
Legendary names from Bengali cinema world such as actor Soumitra Chatterjee and director Buddhadeb Dasgupta, otherwise regulars at the fest, preferred to give the Nov 10−17 event a miss, while eminent filmmaker Mrinal Sen just made a cameo appearance on the penultimate day.
Though Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee,.
- 11/18/2012
- by Leon David
- RealBollywood.com
Patricio Guzmán, whose film The Battle of Chile chronicled Pinochet's coup, talks to Sukhdev Sandhu about Nostalgia for the Light, his new meditation on astronomy
Patricio Guzmán, the director responsible for The Battle of Chile (1975-1979), widely regarded as one of the towering achievements in the history of documentary film, is talking about its invisibility in the country where he was born. "It has never been transmitted on Chilean television. It provokes fear among executives. They do not dare. When all of us are dead then someone will dare to put it on screen. Meanwhile, every time someone on television is talking about Allende, they steal images from my film but use them in a context different from the original."
The Battle of Chile emerged during a period of revolutionary turmoil across Latin America. Mass movements against authoritarianism and for socialist emancipation were on the rise. A generation of insurgent...
Patricio Guzmán, the director responsible for The Battle of Chile (1975-1979), widely regarded as one of the towering achievements in the history of documentary film, is talking about its invisibility in the country where he was born. "It has never been transmitted on Chilean television. It provokes fear among executives. They do not dare. When all of us are dead then someone will dare to put it on screen. Meanwhile, every time someone on television is talking about Allende, they steal images from my film but use them in a context different from the original."
The Battle of Chile emerged during a period of revolutionary turmoil across Latin America. Mass movements against authoritarianism and for socialist emancipation were on the rise. A generation of insurgent...
- 7/20/2012
- by Sukhdev Sandhu
- The Guardian - Film News
Via The Seventh Art
"Made in Argentina in 1968, The Hour of the Furnaces (La hora de los hornos) is the film that established the paradigm of revolutionary activist cinema," argues Nicole Brenez in Sight & Sound. "'For the first time,' said one of its writers, Octavio Getino, 'we demonstrated that it was possible to produce and distribute a film in a non-liberated country with the specific aim of contributing to the political process of liberation.' The film is not just an act of courage, it's also a formal synthesis, a theoretical essay and the origin of several contemporary image practices." The New Inquiry points us to the film on YouTube as well as Getino and Fernando Solanas's essay, "Towards a Third Cinema."
In other news. "The BFI has scored a considerable coup, revealing that it has uncovered a copy of what is not only the earliest surviving film...
"Made in Argentina in 1968, The Hour of the Furnaces (La hora de los hornos) is the film that established the paradigm of revolutionary activist cinema," argues Nicole Brenez in Sight & Sound. "'For the first time,' said one of its writers, Octavio Getino, 'we demonstrated that it was possible to produce and distribute a film in a non-liberated country with the specific aim of contributing to the political process of liberation.' The film is not just an act of courage, it's also a formal synthesis, a theoretical essay and the origin of several contemporary image practices." The New Inquiry points us to the film on YouTube as well as Getino and Fernando Solanas's essay, "Towards a Third Cinema."
In other news. "The BFI has scored a considerable coup, revealing that it has uncovered a copy of what is not only the earliest surviving film...
- 3/10/2012
- MUBI
Still from The Artist
The 2011 edition of Mumbai Film Festival can boast of a strong French connection. Not only does it include a strong line-up of French films in a special section, but it will also celebrate the 50th anniversary of Cannes Critics Week by presenting a retrospective of 25 films.
The special section called ‘Rendez-vous with French Cinema’ will be co-organized with the French Embassy in India and Unifrance. For those who remember, this is the fourth edition of the event in Mumbai which has been merged with the Mumbai Film Festival this year. The past three editions were held separately as film festivals. This section will bring to Mumbai some of the critically acclaimed contemporary French films which include The Artist by Michel Hazanavicius, The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Robert Guédiguian and Declaration of War by ValérieDonzelli.
The Artist which will open the section competed at the Cannes Film...
The 2011 edition of Mumbai Film Festival can boast of a strong French connection. Not only does it include a strong line-up of French films in a special section, but it will also celebrate the 50th anniversary of Cannes Critics Week by presenting a retrospective of 25 films.
The special section called ‘Rendez-vous with French Cinema’ will be co-organized with the French Embassy in India and Unifrance. For those who remember, this is the fourth edition of the event in Mumbai which has been merged with the Mumbai Film Festival this year. The past three editions were held separately as film festivals. This section will bring to Mumbai some of the critically acclaimed contemporary French films which include The Artist by Michel Hazanavicius, The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Robert Guédiguian and Declaration of War by ValérieDonzelli.
The Artist which will open the section competed at the Cannes Film...
- 10/10/2011
- by Nandita Dutta
- DearCinema.com
Tuesday, DVD roundup day, is a fine day for taking a look at the new Summer 2011 issue of Cineaste, particularly since, among the online samplings this time around, DVD reviews outnumber all other types of articles combined.
To begin, Darragh O'Donoghue on Harun Farocki's Still Life (1997): "Five aphoristic essays on 17th-century Dutch still-life painting, of about three minutes each, bracket four documentary sequences of photographers creating modern still lifes for magazine advertisements. These two levels, though defined by opposites — stasis/motion, tell/show — are linked by visual motifs and rhymes, just as the modern products echo the subjects of the paintings. The documentary sequences have no commentary, mostly last ten to fifteen minutes, and take their cue from Farocki's earlier An Image (Ein bild, 1983). In that short, he recorded the shooting of a German Playboy centerfold spread, from the building of sets and the arrangement of props (including...
To begin, Darragh O'Donoghue on Harun Farocki's Still Life (1997): "Five aphoristic essays on 17th-century Dutch still-life painting, of about three minutes each, bracket four documentary sequences of photographers creating modern still lifes for magazine advertisements. These two levels, though defined by opposites — stasis/motion, tell/show — are linked by visual motifs and rhymes, just as the modern products echo the subjects of the paintings. The documentary sequences have no commentary, mostly last ten to fifteen minutes, and take their cue from Farocki's earlier An Image (Ein bild, 1983). In that short, he recorded the shooting of a German Playboy centerfold spread, from the building of sets and the arrangement of props (including...
- 6/7/2011
- MUBI
"Released in that mythical year of 1968, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea's Memories of Underdevelopment is, like its main character, both part of and apart from its time," writes Michael Joshua Rowin in the La Weekly. "While Argentine revolutionaries Fernando Ezequiel Solanas and Octavio Getino were penning guerrilla filmmaking manifesto 'Towards a Third Cinema' and Jean-Luc Godard was jettisoning mainstream production for an uncompromising foray into radical Marxism, Underdevelopment spoke the international language of political modernism (montage, found footage, self-reflexivity) in order to look back on an actually successful revolution in dejection and frustration. Redcat's pairing of this landmark of Latin American cinema with Miguel Coyula's unofficial sequel, Memories of Overdevelopment, highlights the enduring importance of the former and the avant-garde heritage sought and earned by the latter." Between Displacement and Nostalgia: Conflicted Memories of Cuba begins this evening at 6:30.
- 10/23/2010
- MUBI
[With the recent publication of my friend Matthew Losada's profile of Argentine documentarian Fernando Solanas for the Great Directors database at Senses of Cinema, I felt now would be a good time to revisit my interview with Solanas from the 2006 San Francisco International Film Festival in conjunction with the U.S. premiere of The Dignity of the Nobodies (La dignidad de los nadies, 2005).]
My heartfelt thanks to Hilary Hart and the San Francisco Film Society for granting me 15 minutes to talk to Fernando Solanas [official Spanish website], director of The Dignity of the Nobodies (La dignidad de los nadies, 2005), which had its U.S. premiere at the 49th edition of the San Francisco International Film Festival (Sfiff) in association with the United Nations Association Film Festival and Global Exchange [my earlier write-up is here]. What a welcome opportunity! With my broken Spanish and the able translations of Oscar Arteta, I was able to touch upon a few points with Solanas.
My heartfelt thanks to Hilary Hart and the San Francisco Film Society for granting me 15 minutes to talk to Fernando Solanas [official Spanish website], director of The Dignity of the Nobodies (La dignidad de los nadies, 2005), which had its U.S. premiere at the 49th edition of the San Francisco International Film Festival (Sfiff) in association with the United Nations Association Film Festival and Global Exchange [my earlier write-up is here]. What a welcome opportunity! With my broken Spanish and the able translations of Oscar Arteta, I was able to touch upon a few points with Solanas.
- 7/11/2010
- Screen Anarchy
The Argentinean/French filmmaker will start lensing his sci-fi romance with the pairing of Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe) and Kristen Dunst. - I jumped the gun earlier this year, thinking that Juan Solanas (Nordeste) was well on his way with his sophomore project, when in fact, no actors had signed on the dotted line. Today comes word (via Production Weekly) that the Argentinean/French filmmaker will start lensing his sci-fi romance with the pairing of Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe) and Kristen Dunst. Sturgess takes over for the role that Emile Hirsch was in negotiations for. I can't think of many examples where the blend of sci-fi and romance actually work - the last sample I saw was the overly-ambitious and tedious Mr.Nobody. Upside Down tells the story Adam is a seemingly ordinary guy in a very extraordinary universe. He lives humbly trying to make ends meet,...
- 12/13/2009
- by Ioncinema.com Staff
- IONCINEMA.com
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