New Argentine Cinema

What is happening down there?! As will be clear when you see the films in our special section on the current Argentine Cinema: a heck of a lot!

From the most seemingly small scale, quietly and precisely observed, to the ambitious in both length and vision, from the charmingly funny to the deeply moving, it’s a lot of terrific and original work, the likes of which are not as easy to find in some more widely recognized sections of the film world these days. Perhaps it’s a coincidence—nah, it’s not!—that all the films we’re showing in this section are the works of individual director/writers, their own distinct visions. Half are by women and all have strong female presences (to say the least!). After that? Lots to talk about over a glass or two of malbec.

North American premiere! Cetáceos

Argentina/Italy 2018—DCP—77 Minutes

In Spanish with English subtitles

Director, Screenplay: Florencia Percea

Producers: Mercedes Cordova, Florencia Percea, Valeria Forster

Cast: Elisa Carricajo, Rafael Spregelburd, Susana Pampín, Esteban Bigliardi

Print courtesy: Florencia Percea

Marked by a wry, understated humor that seems to come from another world than the one of bombast and flash we’ve become used to, Cetáceos is a first feature from Florencia Percea that delivers genuine satisfaction through its modest but ultimately deep approach. Clara and Alejandro are moving to a new home; he travels for work and she stays surrounded by boxes and wrapped objects. Compelled by the disfunction, she lives new and unforeseen experiences, postponing her mundane work obligations. Alejandro constantly communicates with her via skype to tell her about his professional success, and though Clara seems to act normally, she hides parties, the people she meets, and her life from his narcissistic gaze. As she lies, something awakens inside her; she starts noticing that things are no longer in the same place that they used to be.

Sponsored by Jill Gordon

New England premiere! Familia Submergida (A Family Submerged)

Argentina/Norway/Germany/Brazil 2018—DCP—91 Minutes

In Spanish with English subtitles

Director, Screenplay: María Alché

Producer: Bárbara Francisco

Cast: Mercedes Morán, Esteban Bigliardi, Marcelo Subiotto, Laila Maltz

Print courtesy: Visit Films

“The emerging writer-director harnesses the experience and passion from her photographic work in order to achieve a different, transformative kind of quality in storytelling. The film’s protagonist, middle-aged Marcela, wife and mother of three young-adult children, has to come to terms with her sister’s passing. Even though the events seem to maintain the usual continuation in her household, she becomes mentally disconnected from her life and family, although she keeps up the appearance and preserves the interactions with family members while clearing up her sister’s apartment. The latter, however, does not turn into a purging ritual at the end of which Marcela would attain a catharsis or closure and return to her daily routine. On the contrary, Alché conjures up a new dimension, a parallel world for her heroine, where she is not attempting to come to terms with the loss, but encounters deceased aunts and family members and revels in their company in a more radical drift from reality and presence. The film has a spellbinding and palpable effect, turning the viewing experience into lucid dreaming. Strange and disquieting, A Family Submerged is masterfully orchestrated delusion, as memory and past collide with higher planes of perception and eternity. María Alché’s film is a small, ethereal, and evocative offering, with a profound and lasting effect”—

Film Anarchy

Sponsored by Chris Rusnov and Bobby Hayes

Sunday, July 14, 9:00 p.m., RR3

Saturday, July 20, 3:00 p.m., RR3

Saturday, July 13, 3:00 p.m., RR3

Sunday, July 21, 3:00 p.m., RR3

New England premiere! La Flor (The Flower)

Shown in 4 parts

Argentina 2018—DCP—Part 1: 226 Minutes; Part 2: 218 Minutes; Part 3: 223 Minutes; Part 4: 224 Minutes

In Spanish and other languages with English subtitles and in English Director, Screenplay: Mariano Llinás

Producer: Laura Citarella

Cast: Elisa Carracajo, Valeria Correa, Pilar Gamboa, Laura Paredes

Print courtesy: Grasshopper Films

Okay. It’s true that La Flor is over 14 hours in all. It’s also true that you don’t have to see all four parts to be able to have a totally fulfilling time. Or see them in order (though...why not?!). But the thing is: see them! Anyone who saw director/writer Mariano Llinas’ Extraordinary Stories (MIFF 2009) will actually need no urging: this is among the most mind-bendingly inventive and just plain entertaining cinema made in this century. We are screening it in four parts. But actually there are six parts, four without endings, one without a beginning and one with everything! What’s it about? Well...four fantastic women, who reinvent themselves in each section, from scientists in a B-movie-ish cursed mummy story to pop music divas in a crazy musical melodrama to spies in an international thriller. Of course, it’s about movies. It’s about stories. It’s about invention and creativity itself. It is one of the most amazing accomplishments in cinematic history and absolutely the most fun 14 hour movie ever made. Be the first one on your block (and possibly the last) to see it!

Sponsored by Leslie Stein and Doug Van Horn

Part 1:

Fri, July 12, 8:15 p.m., RR2

Mon, July 15, 2:00 p.m., RR2

Part 2:

Sat, July 13, 8:00 p.m., RR3

Tues, July 16, 2:00 p.m., RR3

U.S. premiere! La Omisión (The Omission)

Argentina/The Netherlands/Switzerland 2018—DCP—90 Minutes

In Spanish with English subtitles

Director, Screenplay: Sebastián Schjaer

Producer: Melanie Schapiro

Cast: Sofía Brito, Lisandro Rodríguez, Malena Hernández Díaz, Victoria Raposo

Print courtesy: Patra Spanou

In snowy Patagonia, in the south of Argentina, Paula, a 23-year-old girl from Buenos Aires, starts an intense job hunt with the sole purpose of saving money. The lack of a job, a home, and a stable emotional environment will end up turning that search into a personal and introspective journey. She will have to deal with the hard living conditions in the south as well as with the unsolved aspects of her life, which she herself is just beginning to be able to see. She knows she is shouting, but she can’t hear herself. This is a deeply affecting film from an area of the world that’s 7,000 miles south of Maine, yet remarkably close to home in both landscape and feeling.

Cinematographer Roman Kasserollur introduces: Los Miembros de la Familia

(Family Members)

Argentina 2019—DCP—85 Minutes

In Spanish with English subtitles

Director, Screenplay: Mateo Bendesky

Producers: Agustina Costa Varsi, Diego Dubcovsky, Mateo Bendesky

Cinematographer: Roman Kasseroller

Cast: Laila Maltz, Tomás Wicz, Alejandro Russek

Print courtesy: Patra Spanou

In an off-season seaside resort town that’s seen better days, siblings Gilda and Lucas are trying to fulfill their mother’s last, cryptic wish: to throw her dismembered hand into the ocean. In Mateo Bendesky’s first feature (his wonderful short, Nosotros Solos, was at last year’s MIFF) there are greater, more inexplicable mysteries to be solved, though not really voiced, between the two—and with the rest of the world, including Gilda’s chakra stones and tarot cards, and the attention Lucas is starting to receive from an older bodybuilder on the beach. Closely observed, whimsical, comic, and sweet, Family Members marks the emergence of a filmmaker whose sensibility is unique, unusual, and very human.

Sponsored by Karen Young

Part 3:

Wed, July 17, 2:00 p.m., RR3

Fri, July 19, 8:45 p.m., RR2

Part 4:

Thurs, July 18, 2:00 p.m., RR3

Sun, July 21, 12:30 p.m., WOH

Saturday, July 13, 12:00 p.m., RR3

Tuesday, July 16, 9:00 p.m., RR3

Sunday, July 14, 3:15 p.m., RR2

Monday, July 15, 6:00 p.m., RR3