"},"errors":[{"key":"cite_error_references_duplicate_key","params":["clarin94"]}]}"> [1] It was one of the only five Argentine films that were released in 1994. [52]
While in Calcutta presenting Fuego gris at IFFI (held 0–20 January 1994), César contacted Indian producers to find the location for his next film, Unicornio, el jardín de las frutas, [53] the second part of the so-called "trilogy of triumphs" that had begun with Equinoccio, el jardín de las rosas. [11] [8] One of the co-production proposals he received was to shoot in the state of Karnataka, although its landscapes did not coincide with César's idea of having a more desert setting and golden colors. [53] On the night of January 14, César was invited to the suite of the Taj Bengal Hotel in Calcutta where the Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni was staying, to have dinner with him, Pino Solanas and their respective wives. [54] Antonioni recommended that he shoot Unicornio, el jardín de las frutas in the state of Rajasthan, as it suited the characteristics he was looking for. [54] However, after the insistence of an Indian producer, César traveled to Karnataka and signed a co-production contract to film in that state. [55] Due to non-compliance on the part of said Indian producer, César traveled to India again and contacted the director Murali Nair, signing a new co-production contract to shoot the film in Rajasthan. [55] Filmed in and on the outskirts of Jaisalmer and Jodhpur, in the state of Rajasthan, Unicornio, el jardín de las frutas is the first co-production between Argentina and India. [10] [11] In an interview with César and Nair for Clarín on the occasion of the film's premiere, journalist Diego Lerer wrote:
He has arrived here (the newsroom) in the company of Murali Nair, a young Indian man who served as producer for India in this first co-production between the two countries. Nair was not the original producer of Unicornio, on the Indian side, but the businessman who had closed a deal with Pablo César not only caused him many problems at first (as the director will refer to below) but later had the rudeness to die. Nice things happen on film. Especially if it's so many thousands of miles from home. But the director is already an expert in filming against all odds. [55]
The last part of the "trilogy of triumphs" is Afrodita, el jardín de los perfumes , released in 1998. [56] The film was a co-production with Mali and was shot in a Dogon village called Na-Komo near Sangha, where the Bandiagara cliffs are; and in the town of Gao, in the northwest of the country. [57] César traveled to Mali in January 1997 and met with the National Center for Cinematographic Production (CNPC) in the town of Hombori, presenting the project of Afrodita, el jardín de los perfumes to them. [57] [58] He returned to the African country on August 14, 1997, and signed the co-production contract with the CNPC in the city of Bamako, starting filming in May of the following year. [57] [58] Upon returning to Argentina, the material filmed in Gao never reached the director and he was forced to return to the Malian town to shoot the scenes of the film again. [57] In order to cover the costs of reshooting the missing scenes, César decided to mortgage his office in the hope of support from the National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts (INCAA). [57] On August 8, 1998, the director stated in an interview with Clarín: "When we arrived here (Argentina) we found that one of the packages had been lost, with 30% of the printed material. The airline says it's going to show up, but since it hasn't happened yet, I decided to go back there (to Mali) and shoot again. And since Argentine insurance does not cover these risks, I am more indebted than before." [57]
Sangre is César's sixth 35mm feature film, with a script by him and his brother Mike. It was screened for the first time in November 2003 as part of the Official Competition of the Amiens International Film Festival, in the French city, where the protagonist Ivonne Fournery received the Best Actress Award. [36] [28] The film had its Argentine premiere on December 4, 2003. [36] [28]
His next film, Hunabkú, was filmed in El Calafate and the Perito Moreno glacier, Santa Cruz Province, in Argentine Patagonia; carried out with the support of INCAA and the Municipality of El Calafate. [18] [19] The film was shot in September 2006, which complicated the sound direction as it was a windy month. [59] Much of Hunabkú was filmed in dangerous conditions, due to the danger of walking on the glacier. [60] [61] In an interview with Los Andes , the director commented on this: "Luckily there were no accidents. But there is a moment when Lucas (Arévalo), the protagonist, feels attracted by the icy water of the glacier and jumps into it without digital tricks. There were three repetitions of the scene and in two of them the glacier thundered and released a large piece of ice that produced giant waves." [61] César explained how he managed to shoot on the glacier in an article for Kodak's In Camera magazine:
Argentine filmmaker Pablo César loves to shoot in risky conditions. He has directed films in the Sahara desert and in North India. His most recent production, Hunabkú, was produced in Patagonia, with much of the action taking place on a glacier that rises 300 feet above the ocean. César asked cinematographer Abel Peñalba to join him on the adventure. The duo had previously collaborated on the feature film Sangre. "When we did the exploration at the beginning of 2006, the glacier looked like an enormous white blanket capable of transmitting the necessary peace," says César. César decided early on that the film would be produced in 35mm format. "Despite the advances digital technology has made in recent years, I'm still not convinced by the results I've seen," he says. "Also, the cost of renting one of the really good digital cameras is very high, as is the cost of the transfer processes from digital to 35mm." In keeping with this approach, Peñalba used "normal" focal lengths and natural light, avoiding strong fill light where possible. On the glacier, he used only a smooth reflected fill to adjust the close-ups. He used the Academy 1.85 aspect ratio because he felt it was better suited to landscapes, choosing Kodak Vision 2 250D and Kodak Vision 2 500T film. [60]
Hunabkú premiered in Argentina in October 2007. [62] The following month, the film was presented at the IFFI, held in the city of Goa, where César was also a member of the jury. [10] Hunabkú also participated in the Biarritz Film Festival, the Cinemagic Film Festival in Belfast, the Amiens International Film Festival and the Pune International Film Festival in India. [61]
In 2008, César made a trip to Benin together with the screenwriter Jerónimo Toubes, visiting the cities of Ganvié and Ouidah, in order to develop a film about the African roots in the population of Argentina. The following year, César returned to Benin accompanied by executive producer Pablo Ballester, signing a co-production contract with the Directorate of Cinematography of Benin. On February 26, 2010, filming began on the resulting film, Orillas, with two weeks of filming in Sakété and another two in Ouidah, Ganvié and Porto-Novo. Orillas is Argentina's first film co-production with a sub-Saharan African country. [63] [64] On the occasion of the film, the Argentine Ambassador to Nigeria, Susana Pataro, wrote in September 2010: "Last November, when Pablo César visited the filming locations, we had the opportunity to accompany him on part of the tour of emblematic sites such as the town of Ouidah, from where thousands of slaves left for the Americas. Today it is a peaceful fishing port that can be reached from Cotonou, (...) after an hour's journey. Until you reach the small beach, you travel along the 'slave route' in a shocking journey of just over 2 km." [63]
Orillas combines two intertwined stories, one set in Benin and the other in Argentina. The filming of the Argentine portion took place in April 2010 and lasted 4 weeks, of which 2 took place entirely on Isla Maciel (neighborhood in Dock Sud). The Argentine cast of Orillas was a mix of professional actors—such as Javier Lombardo, Daniel Valenzuela, and Dalma Maradona—with young locals from Isla Maciel with no acting experience. [65] [66] During a rehearsal for the film, a neighbor judged the young actors by their appearance and believed he was witnessing a robbery, causing forty police officers to be sent to the location. [66] The soundtrack of Orillas includes some songs that were composed especially for the film by Los Ñeris del Docke, a hip hop band from Isla Maciel. [63] [67]
In 2010, César was the promoter of a cooperation agreement between INCAA and the Directorate of Cinematography of Benin, to carry out film co-production agreements between both nations. [68] Orillas premiered in Buenos Aires on 10 November 2011, a year after its completion. [8] [65] The film was presented at the New York International Latino Film Festival in the US; the Bogotá International Film Festival in Colombia; the Cinemaissí in Finland; the Vues d'Afrique International Film Festival in Canada; the Rwanda Film Festival in Rwanda; the Festival de Cinéma Image et Vie in Senegal; the International Human Rights Film Festival in Bolivia; and the IFFI in Goa. [8] In 2012, Orillas won the Special Jury Prize and the Audience Award at the Quintessence Festival in the city of Ouidah. [67]
In 2012—invited by the president of INCAA Liliana Mazure for being the only Argentine to direct co-productions with Africa—César joined the trade mission that accompanied President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to the Argentine Industries Fair in Luanda, Angola. [3] [69] There, he began to establish contacts with the Instituto Angolano do Cinema e do Audiovisual (IACA) seeking to co-produce his next film Los dioses de agua. César made three trips to Angola before signing the co-production contract with IACA, and once to Ethiopia before doing the same with the company Blue Nile Toon. [69]
Starring Juan Palomino and Charo Bogarín (singer of folk duo Tonolec ), Los dioses de agua was shot in different geographies of Lunda Norte and Malanje, in Angola, especially in the area of the Kalandula Falls and the Black Rocks at Pungo Andongo; and in Addis Ababa and Lalibela, in Ethiopia, in ancient Coptic monasteries and in an area of ancient obelisks. [20] It thus became the first co-production between Argentina, Angola and Ethiopia. [69] [70] Filming took four weeks in Angola, ten days in Ethiopia, one week in Formosa Province and three in Buenos Aires. [30] In 2017, César recalled: "I went to film in difficult places, I did not go to film in the capitals, we filmed in the Kalandula Falls in Angola and we went to look for a shaman who was 30 kilometers from the border with the Congo. We were driving along a red dirt road with green foliage on the side and someone wanted to urinate and the driver told him that he had to do it next to the car because the field could be mined and there could also be lions." [3] During filming in Angola, a platoon of strangers tried to forcefully board the plane that César had rented for the team, which turned into a physical altercation. [71]
Los dioses de agua premiered at IFFI in Goa on 21 November 2014. [72] In 2015, the film won the Best Foreign Film and Best Director awards at the NiFF Houston Int'l Film Festival in Houston. [73] César summoned the filmmaker Paulo Pécora to record the filming of Los dioses de agua, originally intended to be a "making-off" to be included as an extra on a DVD release. [74] However, the amount of material that Pécora shot was such that he decided to collect it in the documentary film Amasekenalo, a "film within a film" that premiered at the General San Martín Cultural Center in 2017. [74]
After having made Los dioses de agua, César felt that he had not finished with everything he needed to convey, so the idea of making the sequel El cielo escondido came up. [75] The film continues the story of the protagonist, Hermes, although played by actor Pablo Padilla instead of Juan Palomino. [75] The director wrote the script together with the editor Liliana Nadal, whom he had known since his first film. [76] César began looking for potential production partners online after getting the script, eventually meeting Pedro Mendoza of Namibian production company New Mission Films. [33] Filming took place just ten days after the initial correspondence between the director and Mendoza. [33] The film was largely financed by INCAA and the Namibia Film Commission, being the first co-production between Argentina and that country. [33] [13] El cielo escondido was shot in July 2015 in the Namibian towns of Twyfelfontein, Swakopmund, Walvis Bay, Kolmanskop, Lüderitz and the NamibRand Nature Reserve; and in September in the Province of Córdoba, especially the Eden Hotel in La Falda, linked to Nazism. [13] In a 2016 interview, journalist Pablo E. Arahuete asked César what was the hardest part of filming El Cielo Escondido, to which the director replied:
The hardest part was filming the dialogue between Hermes and the two Himba twins, the Hidipo, since they were natural and were not actors. It was the first 3 days of filming and everything was very complex. We also had no choice. It was also difficult for the actor because he had to face the issue of language, despite the fact that Pablo (Padilla) was very professional and every day he studied the phonetics of the Khoekhoe language spoken by the Damara, with the help of a local teacher. But this shooting was wonderful overall. I have only good memories. Namibia is a beautiful place. [75]
El cielo escondido premiered in Namibia on November 4, 2016, at the Ster-Kinekor cinema in Maerua Mall, Windhoek. [33] In 2017, the film won the award for Best Actor (for Padilla) at the AltFF Alternative Film Festival in Toronto, [77] and for Best Film at the Philadelphia Independent Film Awards (IFAP). [78]
In 2017, César shot Pensando en él (Thinking of Him), a film based on the meeting between Rabindranath Tagore and Victoria Ocampo in 1924 in Buenos Aires, played by Victor Banerjee and Eleonora Wexler, respectively. [21] [79] The idea for the film arose in 2008, when the then Ambassador of India in Argentina, Rengaraj Viswanathan, suggested to César that he tell the story during a visit to the embassy. [21] [79] The filmmaker was very enthusiastic about the idea since he had extensive knowledge of Tagore's literature, especially the translations he had made of Sufi poets. [79] César the explained the research and writing process of the script in an interview with The Indian Express :
I met with Jeronimo Toubes, Argentine scriptwriter. We began to study together. Jeronimo even made a trip to India in 2009 to investigate the subject. For four years, he carried out deep research on the subject. We loved the book of Ketaki Kushari Dyson In Your Blossoming Flower-Garden—a deep work on the relationship between Tagore and Ocampo. We read all the books concerning the educational work of Tagore in Bolpur, Santiniketan, since the focus of the film, although it is the relationship between Tagore and Ocampo, is the fascination of Victoria in the vision of a man on the education of the human soul. The book by Ocampo, Tagore en las barrancas de San Isidro, as well as the letters exchanged between them helped us to discover the mutual fascination that existed between the two. [21]
Pensando en él is the second co-production between Argentina and India. [27] It was shot in Argentina—including the Villa Ocampo residence—and in India, including a Tagore house and "El Ashram", a kind of school founded by him. [27] Pensando en él was presented as the closing film at the IFFI in Goa. [22] It had its Argentine premiere on August 24, 2018, [79] and its Indian premiere in September 2019. [22] In 2018, the film was selected to participate in the Asian Film Festival in Taiwan, the Dhaka International Film Festival and the Latin American Film Festival. [22] According to Satish Singh of the Indian newspaper Afternoon Voice: "Honourable President of India Ram Nath Kovind has also mentioned about the film Thinking of Him in his address. This happened when Argentina's President Mauricio Macri met the Honourable President of India on February 18, 2019. Argentina's President Macri had come to India for attending the 70th year of the establishment of formal diplomatic relations between India and Argentina." [22]
In 2016, César met the Moroccan producer Souad Lamriki—co-founder of the production company Agora Films—during a panel on African co-productions, held within the framework of the Mar del Plata International Film Festival. [9] They decided to collaborate on a film, resulting in El llamado del desierto, directed by César and released in Argentina on June 29, 2018. [9] Although Argentina and Morocco had signed a film collaboration memorandum of understanding in 2000, El llamado del desierto was the first co-production between the two countries. [9] Most of its financing was provided by INCAA and the Center Cinématographique Marocain (CCM). [9] According to the director, the film was "forged by a desire to initiate co-production activity between the two nations, rather than to develop a pre-selected project or existing screenplay." [9] The script was written by Jerónimo Toubes and later translated into French, in part so that it could be considered by the MCC, but also to be reviewed by Agora Films before retaining the scenes in Spanish and reworking relevant sections of dialogue in Moroccan Arabic. [9] In 2021, El llamado del desierto had its world premiere in the Official Competition of the tenth edition of the Festival International De Cinéma Et De Mémoire Commune in Nador, Morocco, where actor Abdellah Cakiri won the award for Best Leading Actor. [80]
César has given several conferences on the so-called "South-South Cooperation" (Spanish: Cooperación Sur-Sur), promoting modes of production, distribution and dissemination of films from the global south that contrast with the mainstream trends. [32] [33] He has given seminars on the subject with his partner Pablo Ballester at the IFFI (2015), the Kelibia International Film Festival (2016), the Carthage Film Festival] (2017), FESPACO (2015) and the Kalasha Film Market. (2018). [32] [81]
In 2020 he released El día del pez, the first co-production between Argentina and Ivory Coast, and the last part of the trilogy formed together with Los dioses de agua and El cielo escondido. [23]
In 2023, Cèsar released his first feature-length documentary film, Macongo, la Córdoba africana, in which he interviews historians, ethnologists, anthropologists and residents about the legacy of Afro-descendants in the province of Córdoba. [24] Due to the context of crisis in national film production, aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, César decided to undertake the project independently. [82] César has said he plans to repeat the project in other provinces, including Santiago del Estero, Tucumán, Corrientes and Misiones. [82]
Also in 2023, César shot two feature films that are yet to be released. In February, shooting began on Historia de dos guerreros in the province of Corrientes, more precisely in the town of Empedrado and in the Cambá Cuá neighborhood of the provincial capital. [83] On February 6, the director presented the project in the Salón Verde of the provincial Government House, at a press conference accompanied by the head of the Institute of Culture, Gabriel Romero, and the mayor of Empedrado, José Cheme, together with the actors Alejo Isnardi and Idriss Mousa Sare and the executive producer Pablo Ballester. [25] The film is supported by INCAA and the Institute of Culture of the Government of the Province of Corrientes. [25]
In June 2023, shooting began on Después del final, a biopic about Luz Fernández de Castillo, an Argentine painter, writer and gallery owner. [26] With a screenplay by Jerónimo Toubes, the film stars Luz Castillo herself, with a cast that also includes Eleonora Wexler, Héctor Bidonde, Nilda Raggi, Natalia Cociuffo and Alejandro Botto, among others. [84] Speaking to La Nación on the occasion of the start of shooting, Castillo declared: "I think the film can leave a legacy and show new generations other worlds and values they don't know about (...) I accepted César's proposal because no one is bitter about a sweet and because at 88 years old, someone proposing you to make a film about your life is something as incredibly wonderful as it is unusual. There was no reason to say no." [26]
Currently, César is preparing two new films, one about the cult of Santo Rey Baltazar in Goya, Corrientes, and another one entitled Santo Tomé, la Santa Fe Africana. [85] He also announced that he plans to shoot a fiction feature film about María Remedios del Valle, an Afro-descendant soldier of the Argentine War of Independence. [82]
P. E. Arahuete: "If you had to draw a bridge between the poetics in your films and the African continent, where are they?"
P. César: "They are twinned. The emotion that the sound of the dozens of percussion instruments from Africa, or string instruments, as well as wind instruments, produces in me is something that I try to convey in my films with a poetic palette. Rediscovering an ancestral language in the drawings or paintings of houses of ethnic groups that enclose mysterious languages that possibly have belonged to other civilizations, is something that generates a deep emotion in me. Well, if there is something wonderful about life, for me, it is that we do not know anything and how nice it is to know that there is still so much to discover."
—César interviewed by Pablo Ernesto Arahuete in 2015. [30]
César's work is considered an exponent of independent and auteur cinema, [3] [1] characterized by its use of allegorical, poetic, contemplative, symbolic and dreamlike images. [11] [28] [86] [30] In a 1995 interview, the filmmaker declared his admiration for directors Pier Paolo Pasolini, Werner Herzog and Federico Fellini, [14] while in a 2017 interview he mentioned his admiration for Satyajit Ray, whom he considers the best filmmaker in India. [21] Several authors have pointed out—sometimes critically— [28] that César's films do not resort to the visual and narrative models of commercial cinema, opting for a poetic and personal cinematographic language. [29] In this regard, César pointed out in a 1994 interview that his work "is for those who get carried away by my stories, it is not a merely industrial cinema." [1]
César's work is made entirely in film format. [27] His production in Super-8 includes experimental films, documentaries, and fiction and animated films. [41] His first feature film in 35 mm, La sagrada familia (1988), is an ironic and socially critical film that has been compared to the cinema of Luis Buñuel. [2] It is considered an allegory of the time of the last civic-military dictatorship in Argentina, [6] [7] described by the director as a film "about the abuse of power where religious, economic, political and military powers come together." [3] According to critic Juan Carlos Fontana, the film "shows to what degree of madness various social strata can reach when they become sick with fanaticism". [44]
César is a student of mythology, ethnology and ethnography, which are central elements of much of his work. [30] [23] In 2015, journalist Pablo Ernesto Arahuete asked the director if he saw cinema as a tool for transmitting myths, to which he replied:
Of course. It is important to note that myths are found in the most commercial adventure films in the history of cinema. The wonderful book by Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces , has been taken as a lead by George Lucas to write Star Wars . This he claims himself and with great happiness. Campbell goes through ancient myths associating them and marking the route that the heroes take in each story. In a word, it is the way of man in life. In the case of the films I make, I try to bring the viewer closer to a myth through a story with an air of adventure, mystery and slight suspense. [30]
The first part of the "trilogy of triumphs", Equinoccio, el jardín de las rosas (1991) tells the story of an angel that flies over five towns, with a different event arising in each one. [46] The film is based on Sufi poetry and philosophy, especially the works of Saadi Shirazi, Hafez and Omar Khayyam. [46] Film critic César Magrini defined the film as "visually a sustained poem, (...) full of strange and very captivating suggestion, derived both from the subject matter and from its treatment, which is (...) pronouncedly magical and poetic..." [86]
César has acknowledged that his "discovery" of African and Asian films in Paris in 1986 was a turning point in his career, leading to his decision to film in India and the African continent beginning in the 1990s. [12] In 2023, Página/12 described him as the "only filmmaker in Latin America who has dedicated more than 20 years to dealing with African themes." [24] According to scholar Lieve Spaas of the University of Alabama, the geographic diversity of his films "reveals the filmmaker's determination to reflect on the ways in which cinema innovates traditional practices of representation by defamiliarizing existing perceptions of culture." [15] One example is Afrodita, el jardín de los perfumes (1998), in which César recreates the Greek myth of Aphrodite but alters its traditional paradigm of feminine beauty, since it places the story in the heart of Africa and represents the goddess as a black and male character. [15]
In turn, César's choice of plots and locations has been analyzed in terms of a colonial, postcolonial and neocolonial discourse. [15] [23] In Afrodita, el jardín de los perfumes, for example, he evokes the colonial invasion with the appearance of Aphrodite on the coast of Africa. [15] In this sense, Spaas related the film to the Third Cinema movement of the 1960s, which sought a "destruction of the images of colonial or neocolonial cinema, and the construction of another cinema that captures the revolutionary impulse of the peoples of the Third World". [15] In a 2020 interview, César said about the theme of his work: "In my films I always try to have a theme that unites the countries and a contribution from both parties, from the producers—both technically, artistically and economic—because that's what a true co-production is like." [23]
According to the American researcher and professor David William Foster, Afrodita, el jardín de los perfumes can be interpreted under the notion of queerness, arguing that the film challenges heteronormativity and gender binarism in its heterodox representation of the goddess of love. [87] Foster noted that the character of Aphrodite, represented by a male body, is perceived as male or female depending on the narrative situation. [87] The theme of sexual ambiguity is also present in the other two films of the trilogy: Equinoccio, el jardín de las rosas and Unicornio, el jardín de las frutas (1998). [88] The story of the latter is organized around five episodes, connected through some texts by Omar Khayyam that were strategically placed within each of them. [89] Lisa Nesselson of Variety called Unicorn the Fruit Garden: "A celluloid oddity bathed in homoerotic overtones (...) Via a circular structure linked by a sloshed poet, pic incorporates human sacrifice, much symbolic tweaking of male nipples and other ritualistic behavior set in mystical vistas inhabited by hairless young Indian youths in scanty attire." [11] For his part, César described the style of the film:
Unicornio is nothing more than a simple film that tries to reach the sleeping heart of contemporary man and fills it with flowers in an attempt to help him recover that lost contemplation of the majority. Simple things that day to day seem to be beyond the reach of the new generations. [31]
Defined as the "first rock drama of Argentine cinema", Fuego gris (1994) is a film with no dialogues. [14] [1] Critic Claudio D. Minghetti described César's work as the "cinema of the impossible" and considered that Fuego gris broke with the ideological and aesthetic conventions of industrial cinema. [90] According to the director, the film has an adventure structure through the subjective world and the objective world, in the manner of an "Alice in Horrorland." [1] Writing for La Nación, Claudio España summarized the style of the movie:
The film connotes an individual, personal, complex and sui generis interior space. It also expresses the tastes of our time and in this regard the pleasure for the staging and the framing derived from the comic books is clear. There is no narrative unity but it retains a style throughout its duration. It does not stick to the content of the music and the lyrics of Spinetta, it rises above them in intensity and even in bold aggressiveness. They are languages of this time of which Pablo César—without using a single line of dialogue throughout the work—is a witness and eloquent transmitter. [29]
Sangre (2003) marked a stylistic shift in César's work, being described as his most personal film at the time of its release. [17] It is a film with autobiographical content in which César evokes his own mother. [91] In his review of the film, Adolfo C. Martínez from La Nación wrote: "After his previous filmography, focused on a theme that went through veiled sensations and a certain experimental attitude, the director now decided to turn his work around inserting himself into a realistic story..." [17]
César described Hunabkú (2007) as his most accessible film. [61] Its editing "goes back and forth" as the film explores concepts such as "the real world and what lies beyond, primal energy, and the idea of time as a human creation and not a natural one." [92] The film's visual content, dominated by its large views of the Perito Moreno glacier, led one critic to consider it more of an illustration than a cinematic narrative. [92] Ámbito Financiero 's review noted the stylistic differences between Hunabkú and the "trilogy of triumphs":
Certainly, [the film] contacts in some way with the trilogy of the gardens, although in a closer and less literary way. Also less provocative, and perhaps deliberately more naive. Not anymore, the strange landscapes of Tunisia, Mali, and Hindustan. Not anymore, the old palaces and the dozens of locals acting as extras in ceremonies capable of dialoguing with Pasolini. Nor the succession of stories and poems, the anti-religious admonitions, the increasingly open and artistic sexual suggestions, within the concepts handled by César, a true independent before the industrialization of the term independent." [91]
César's cinema has largely focused on vindicating the cultural legacy of the Afro-descendant population in Argentina, a taboo subject in the country. [30] [20] [65] The director expressed in 2019 that "almost all my films refer to Afro roots in Argentina." [93] His film Orillas (2011) raises this issue, reflecting on the cultural links between Argentina and Benin. [65] [94] In a 2015 interview, César felt that:
Only now, in recent years, have great steps been taken towards reconciliation. (...) The invisibility of Afro-descendants in the history of our country has taken place. However, our cities and culture were built on the knowledge of men and women who came from different parts of Africa. (...) All porteños evoke Africans when speaking in our day to day and we don't know it because we are very dispersed, distracted by so much technology and consumerist anxiety. Many of our heroes were Afro-descendants and hid it precisely because of that desire to make invisible, to hide the truth and to build the illusion of a white Argentina. [30]
The theme of the legacy of the Afro-Argentine community is central in the trilogy formed by Los dioses de agua (2014), El cielo escondido (2016) and El día del pez (2020), films that follow the character of Hermes, an anthropologist. [20] [13] The content of Los dioses de agua reflects César's readings Marcel Griaule, and his interest in the cosmogonies of the Dogon and Tchokwe peoples. [13] [69] In an interview with Página/12, he explained his interest in the philosophy of these cultures: "When writer Erich von Däniken published the book Memories of the Future, which pointed out that we had been visited by beings from more advanced civilizations, they treated him like crazy. Now, it is very common to ask if humanity had a very high development and if, at some point, that humanity disappeared. So, what interests me is how these languages can be encrypted in drawings, elements or sculptures. And, sometimes, we have them in front of us. It's not that they're so hidden." [69]
The director maintained that the genres of suspense, thriller, action and adventure "crept in" the film Los dioses de agua. [13] Journalist Pablo E. Arahuete pointed out that, unlike Los dioses de agua, El cielo escondido "this time does not appeal so much to the realm of dreams, but develops a suspense story, anchored in the idea of silencing those voices that try to tell what the true interests are behind the facades of foundations or powerful groups, who see in the African continent and its population the most brutal and reactionary pretext as part of an authoritarian discourse that simply relies on the rules of the most savage capitalism." [95]
Pensando en él (2018) reconstructs the 1924 meeting between Tagore and Ocampo (filmed in black and white), and intertwines it with the story of a character who reads about it in the present time. [96] Director of photography Carlos Wajsman opined on the style of the film:
It is a strange film, because it is not a biopic, although Tagore did meet Victoria Ocampo. There are two fictions: one that takes place in the current era and another that takes place at the beginning of the last century. What he tells is taken from Victoria Ocampo's books, there are even situations that are taken from her first-person impressions, but they are staged as a work of fiction. On the other hand, it's strange, because other films by Pablo César are more fantastic: a character, who goes in search of fantastic things that happen in exotic countries, goes through a series of adventures... Instead, this one recreates real events—the period part—staged. Real events told from the director's point of view. [27]
In Macongo, la Córdoba africana (2023)—his first feature-length documentary—César returns to the theme of the legacy of the Afro-Argentine community, which he had previously explored in the trilogy of Los dioses de agua, El cielo escondido and El día del pez. [82] In the film, the director travels through the province of Córdoba interviewing historians, ethnologists, anthropologists and local residents about the legacy of the Afro-descendant population in the province. [24] [85] Part of the documentary was shot in Super-8 and the rest in 16 mm film. [82]
Luis Alberto Spinetta, nicknamed "El Flaco", was an Argentine singer, guitarist, composer, writer and poet. One of the most influential rock musicians of Argentina, he is widely regarded as one of the founders of Argentine rock, which is considered as the first incarnation of Spanish-language rock. Born in Buenos Aires in the residential neighbourhood of Belgrano, he was the founder of iconic rock bands including Almendra, Pescado Rabioso, Invisible, Spinetta Jade, and Spinetta y Los Socios del Desierto. In Argentina January 23rd is celebrated as "Día Nacional del Músico" in honor of Spinetta's birth.
Amelia Bence was an Argentine film actress and one of the divas of the Golden Age of Argentine Cinema (1940–1960).
Mecha Ortiz was a classic Argentine actress who appeared in films between 1937 and 1981, during the Golden Age of Argentine Cinema. At the 1944 Argentine Film Critics Association Awards, Ortiz won the Silver Condor Award for Best Actress for her performance in Safo, historia de una pasión (1943), and won it again in 1946 for her performance in El canto del cisne (1945). She was known as the Argentine Greta Garbo and for playing mysterious characters, who suffered by past misfortunes in love, mental disorders, or forbidden love. Safo, historia de una pasión was the first erotic Argentine film, though there was no nudity. She also played in the first film in which a woman struck a man and the first film with a lesbian romance. In 1981, she was awarded the Grand Prize for actresses from the National Endowment for the Arts.
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Delia Amadora García Gerboles better known as Delia Garcés was an Argentine film actress of the Golden Age of Argentine Cinema (1940–1960). She made almost 30 appearances in film between 1937 and 1959 and acted on stage from 1936 to 1966. She won the Premios Sur Best Actress award three times from the Argentine Academy of Cinematography Arts and Sciences, as well as the Argentine Film Critics Association's Silver Condor Award for Best Actress, the Premios Leopold Torre Nilsson, Premio Pablo Podestá, and the inaugural ACE Platinum Lifetime Achievement Award from the Asociación de Cronistas del Espectáculo.
Laura Ana "Tita" Merello was an Argentine film actress, tango dancer and singer of the Golden Age of Argentine Cinema (1940–1960). In her six decades in Argentine entertainment, at the time of her death, she had filmed over thirty movies, premiered twenty plays, had nine television appearances, completed three radio series and had had countless appearances in print media. She was one of the singers who emerged in the 1920s along with Azucena Maizani, Libertad Lamarque, Ada Falcón, and Rosita Quiroga, who created the female voices of tango. She was primarily remembered for the songs "Se dice de mí" and "La milonga y yo".
Crane World is a 1999 Argentine film, written and directed by Pablo Trapero. The film was produced by Lita Stantic and Pablo Trapero. It features Luis Margani, Adriana Aizemberg, Daniel Valenzuela, among others.
The Gaucho War is a 1942 Argentine historical drama and epic film directed by Lucas Demare and starring Enrique Muiño, Francisco Petrone, Ángel Magaña, and Amelia Bence. The film's script, written by Homero Manzi and Ulyses Petit de Murat, is based on the novel by Leopoldo Lugones published in 1905. The film premiered in Buenos Aires on November 20, 1942 and is considered by critics of Argentine cinema to be one of the most successful films in history. It won three Silver Condor awards, including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay, given by the Argentine Film Critics Association at the 1943 Argentine Film Critics Association Awards for the best films and performances of the previous year.
Eduardo Montes-Bradley is a documentary filmmaker known for Evita, Rita Dove: An American Poet, and Harto The Borges. His most recent films are Black Fiddlers and Daniel Chester French: American Sculptor He’s currently working on The Italian Factor: The Piccirilli Story.
Zulema Esther González Borbón, better known as Zully Moreno, was an Argentine film actress of the Golden Age of Argentine Cinema (1940–1960). She appeared in more than 70 movies, earning best actress awards from the Argentine Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Spanish Cinema Writers Circle.
Nélida Dodó López Valverde known professionally as Nelly Beltrán was an Argentine actress. She appeared on the radio from the age of 10 and in 85 theatrical performances, 48 films and 3 dozen television shows between 1953 and 1996. She won a Martín Fierro Award as Best Comic Actress for her television work on La hermana San Sulpicio; participated in the film Pajarito Gómez which won the Best Youth Film award at the 15th Berlin International Film Festival; won a Konex Foundation Award; and was honored by the Argentina Actors Association in 2004 for her career contributions.
Tangos, the Exile of Gardel is an Argentine-French film released on 20 March 1986, directed by Fernando Solanas, starring Marie Laforêt, Miguel Ángel Solá and Philippe Leotard. The film was selected as the Argentine entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 59th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.
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Olinda Bozán was an Argentine film actress and comedian of the Golden Age of Argentine Cinema (1940–1960). Born into a circus family, she acted on the vaudeville circuit, and performed in silent and sound movies. She was trained by the Podestá brothers, one of whom she married, who have one of the most prestigious Argentine acting awards named for them. Bozán' appeared in 75 films and was considered one of the best comic actors of Argentine cinema in the 20th century.
Estudios San Miguel was an Argentine film studio that was active in the 1940s and early 1950s. It flourished during the golden age of Cinema of Argentina, and at its peak was one of the major studios in Buenos Aires. Genres ranged from musical comedy to costume drama and gaucho thriller. Films included La guerra gaucha, co-produced with Artistas Argentinos Asociados, and the comedy Juvenilia (1943), both of which won several major awards. Eva Duarte, soon to become the first lady of Argentina as Eva Perón, appeared in two of the studio's films in 1945. The studio became overextended financially and ceased production after 1952.
Aurelia Del Carmen Guarini is an Argentine anthropologist, teacher, film director, and film producer specializing in anthropological documentary films. She teaches visual anthropology and directs documentaries in Argentina and in Cuba. She serves on the documentary projects' evaluation committee at the National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts and participates in Cine Ojo projects.
Contrakultura Films was an imprint of Iruña Films, SA a Buenos Aires film production effort dedicated to producing biographical documentaries on Latin American writers. Production offices were located in San Telmo. Soledad Liendo, Leonardo Hussen and Rodolfo Durán were among the producers. The initiative later expanded to include visual artists such as Andrés Waissman and Humberto Calzada, and [social scientists] such as León Rozitchner, Ismael Viñas, Juan Jose Sebreli and Jorge Lovisolo. Contrakultura existed as such between 2002 and 2006 producing approximately twenty-five documentaries with the support of INCAA, Fondo Nacional de las Artes, and the Ministerio de Cultura de la Nación. These films are presently owned by [Heritage Film Project], and currently being distributed by Alexander Street Press.
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