Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Cinema
Buenos Aires is at the center of the Argentine film industry, which generated a wave of dir-
ectors and films of the New Argentine Cinema. While this movement can't be pinned down
as a school of cinema, as it includes a hodgepodge of themes and techniques, it is certainly
a new movement of film-making that has been attracting international attention, earning
awards and screenings at festivals in New York, Berlin, Rotterdam and Cannes.
Sadly, much of the homegrown production is more acclaimed abroad than in Argentina,
where people are generally more drawn to multiplexes that show Hollywood flicks and ro-
mantic comedies. Perhaps it's because these art-house films deal with themes that are too
close to home - such as survival, alienation, the search for identity and suppressed sexual-
ity.
The film that's considered to have spearheaded the New Argentine Cinema is Rapado by
Martín Rejtman, a minimalist 1992 feature that for the first time pushed the boundaries in a
country where films were generally heavy with bad dialogue. In the late 1990s the govern-
ment withdrew subsidies pledged to film schools and the movie industry. Despite this, two
films ignited 'the new wave' - the low-budget Pizza, birra, faso (Pizza, Beer, Cigarettes;
1998) by Adrián Caetano and Bruno Stagnaro, and Pablo Trapero's award-winning Mundo
grúa (Crane World; 1999), a black-and-white portrait of Argentina's working-class
struggles.
Trapero went on to become one of Argentina's foremost f ilmmakers, whose credits in-
clude El bonaerense (2000); the ensemble road movie Familia rodante (Rolling Family;
2004); Nacido y criado (Born and Bred; 2006) a stark story about a Patagonian man's fall
from grace; and the 2010 noir film Carancho, a love story whose protagonist is a sleazy
opportunist who frequents emergency rooms and accident scenes to find new clients for his
legal firm. Trapero's most recent film is Elefante blanco (White Elephant; 2012), which
screened at Cannes.
One of the brightest stars of the New Argentine Cinema is Daniel Burman, Argentina's
answer to Woody Allen, who deals with the theme of identity in the character of a young
Jew in modern-day Buenos Aires. His films include Esperando al mesíah (Waiting for the
Messiah; 2000), El abrazo partido (Lost Embrace; 2004) and Derecho de familia (Family
Law; 2006). Burman's other claim to fame is his co-production of Walter Salles' Che
Guevara-inspired The Motorcycle Diaries . His most recent film, Dos hermanos (Brother
and Sister; 2010), the story of aging siblings who've recently lost their mother, is based on
the Argentine novel Villa Laura .
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