Toulouse Cinélatino Festival: in Argentina, history at the risk of hiccups, and culture in the spotlight
The meetings of Latin American cinemas in Toulouse always have an appointment with history and current events, and the two echo each other.
The screening of several Argentine films is an opportunity to speak out to raise awareness about the situation in this country where Javier Milei, a candidate described as libertarian and ultra-liberal, took office last December.
Since then, the budget cuts announced during the campaign have followed one another in all sectors.
Culture and cinema, described as useless, particularly bear the brunt of this “chainsaw” policy.
In Argentina, cultural and cinema circles are worried, like many other sectors, about the announcements and first budget cuts decreed by the government of Javier Milei.
The Toulouse cinema meetings echo these concerns, expressed here during a gathering organized on Sunday March 17 at Place Saint-Sernin in Toulouse by the collective "Argentina is not for sale", in response to the government privatization projects.
© isabelle Le Gonidec
By: Isabelle Le Gonidec
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From our special correspondent in Toulouse,
After the screening, Saturday March 16, of the long documentary
El juicio
(
The trial
), by
Ulises de la Orden
, a fantastic summary of the more than 500 hours of hearings from the first trial of the military junta in 1985;
after the return of civilians to power under the presidency of Raul Alfonsin (December 1983-July 1989), Argentines from Toulouse – most of them thirty-somethings integrated into working life – organized a meeting in the courtyard of the famous cinematheque, beating heart of the festival.
They organized themselves into an assembly within the “
Argentina no se vende
” collective.
Image taken from the film “El juicio”, “The trial”, by Ulises de la Orden, awarded in San Sebastian last year and presented at Cinélatino Toulouse in the Documentary Discovery section.
A masterful and strong montage film about the first trial of the Argentine military junta.
In the photo, two women in tears listening to the stories of victims of repression.
© Cinélatino Festival
Memory Week, also in Toulouse
Argentina no se vende
means that “
Argentina is not for sale
”, translates Abril, one of the key figures of the collective.
A slogan which has been the watchword of recent protest demonstrations against the policy of massive privatizations and drastic cuts in the public sector of the Milei government (the famous
omnibus law
partially revoked by Congress), notably on
January 24
.
Branches of this collective have been created in many European cities where an Argentine diaspora lives: Berlin, Paris, Malaga, Barcelona... Sète and Montpellier, too, where Americo and Carole initiated a collective in the wake of organized cinematographic meetings around Latino cinema.
In Toulouse, the group is offering several meetings throughout this week, celebrated in Argentina as Memory Week.
Memory week, in memory of the coup d'état of March 24, 1976 and the repression that followed.
March 24 was declared in Argentina as “Memory Day for Truth and Justice”.
On Sunday, a rally is organized at Place Jean-Jaurès in Toulouse, with white scarves, symbols of the struggle of the
Mothers of the Place de May
.
A slogan declined in many ways and in particular at the cultural level (
La Cultura se defiende
,
La patria no se vende
), and which the world of cinema, worried about recent decisions to make drastic cuts in public budgets, has adopted its own.
Cinema not profitable, according to the executive
Javier Milei
said it during his electoral campaign in
Argentina
: Argentine cinema wastes public money which could feed the population, it is a bottomless pit which has no national audience.
False, replied the professionals of the 7th art and their organizations. Argentina produces films, which are broadcast in the country and exported.
It is an economically profitable sector that generates jobs and income.
According to
some sources
, the sector generates thousands of jobs and represents 5% of GDP.
It benefits from a dynamic enabled by the support of local institutions and co-productions have greatly developed also on the scale of the subcontinent.
And behind the locomotives which have their place in major international festivals and give visibility to Argentina, cinema is part of the culture, the memory, the social bond of a country.
The major international festival of Mar del Plata, for example, attracts film buffs and tourists, hotels and theaters fill up.
Also, the announcement of the elimination of credits for this festival last week provoked an
outcry from local authorities
, even though they are close to the current government.
Carlos Pirovano was appointed head of Incaa (National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts, an independent public institute created in 1957) at the end of February 2024. This financier, without any connection with the seventh art, announced, during his taking office, the
restructuring of Incaa
, the closure of which Javier Milei had requested during his campaign, but also the privatization of the Gaumont cinema (purchased by Incaa in 2013 and emblem of independent Argentine cinema which he ensures for a price distribution), Enerc (the film school more or less equivalent to the French Femis), the elimination of all aid for the promotion of cinema, to film festivals like Mar del Plata and Ventana Sur, etc. .
The National Arts Fund is also in the hot seat.
On March 15, Carlos Pirovano seemed to have partially and orally returned to the decrees which had been signed and published in the official bulletin,
reports the opposition daily
Pagina 12
.
Mobilization on all fronts
During the presidential campaign, alerted by the comments of candidate Milei, cinema professionals had already mobilized.
Read alsoSan Sebastian Festival: the concern of the Argentine cinema community in the face of the threats weighing on culture
The
Cine argentino unido
collective has been on the front lines for months and was present on March 14 at the rally to defend the Gaumont cinema against its privatization.
A demonstration violently repressed, report several cinema professionals present in Toulouse.
Bullrich's police disarmed a peaceful demonstration pic.twitter.com/ICLz7JQsJ4
— Celuloide ® 🎬 📺 📻 (@rolandogallego) March 14, 2024
Professionals too, collectively or individually, are taking a stand, like directors Santiago Miter or Diego Lerer at the last Berlin festival.
The 20th of February by the mother of Argentinian cinemas present at the Berlin Film Festival, they meet at the Argentine Cinema Unido to create awareness of the financial crisis of the sector in the country.https://t.co/GRKuQkxfW3
— Diego Lerer (@dlerer) February 18, 2024
This is also the case for Lucia Puenzo whose latest film
Los impactados
(co-produced by Incaa and her own family production company), was selected in San Sebastian last year and released at the beginning of the month in Argentina .
We hoped for its theatrical distribution in France, but the film was purchased by Netflix.
In an interview at the beginning of March in the Argentine press
, she was concerned about the intentions of the new authorities, explaining that if "
Argentine cinema exists, it is because there was a protective law, a protective industry which self-financing... People don't understand that it's really an industry that provides food for many families.
»
In Toulouse too
In Toulouse too, the Argentinian guests took the floor to defend their art and livelihood.
This was the case on Saturday evening for Martin Benchimol, who accompanies both Lola Arias' documentary,
Reas
, on which he was director of photography, and his own film
El Castillo
.
Javier Milei and his government are attacking all public sectors, including cinema, recalls Martin Benchimol.
And regarding cinema, those in power ideologize it to discredit its structures and Argentine films.
A war which has also led the authorities to suspend the operation of the national news agency Telam since the beginning of March.
Martin Benchimol, Argentinian director and cinematographer, invited to the 36th Rencontres Cinélatino in Toulouse.
© Cinélatino 2024
Also readArgentina: Javier Milei’s crusade against “cultural Marxism”
Met at the festival, the documentary filmmaker and cinematographer Alberto Marquardt, based in France.
Having come to present a collective book on the concentration camp in which he was detained during the military dictatorship, he is concerned about the recent measures of the executive concerning culture and recalls that the Incaa produced financially – with the French public channel France 2 – its documentary
Me sister Alice
(2004)
.
Another documentary filmmaker:
Manuel Embalse
, who is presenting in Toulouse in competition a very interesting documentary,
Las ruinas nuevas,
co-financed by Incaa and the National Arts Fund, (on the way in which our electronic waste tells the story of our world) insists on the need to decompartmentalize demands.
He, who says he has the chance to work with a multidisciplinary collective, walks under the banner of
La culture unida
: cinema is the most visible, the best known part, also the one which received – proportionally – the most public funds, but behind it, we must not forget the other arts: music, performing arts, visual arts, which are already having a hard time existing.
Solidarity, the collective, words that come back often, like balms.
Alberto Marquardt also underlined the extent to which the collective of prisoners, and what they had put in place at the cultural level, had helped to cope with the harshness of detention.
As Laura Citarella, director in particular of
Trenque Lauquen
, released on screens in France, says in the article by Thomas Broggini for
SoFilm
, we undoubtedly need to rethink the method of financing and distribution of films.
With the proliferation of platforms on the web, new modes of consumption have changed the situation.
But we must continue to create, and the films offered in Toulouse are living proof of the necessity of cinema.
As long as it lasts
...
►
Please note
: The documentary
El Castillo
by Martin Benchimol will be presented in Paris during an exceptional screening at the
Majestic Bastille cinema on Sunday March 24
, in support of Argentine cinema.
The funds raised will go to the
Cine argentino unido collective.
►
Please note
: a gathering is also announced on March 24 around the missing French people of the military dictatorship, in Paris, so that justice can finally be done.
►
The entire program of the Rencontres Cinélatino
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