The Circuit

by Charles Newbery
For any who know the economic and political volatility of Argentina, it is no small feat the Buenos Aires Intl. Festival of Independent Film has remained sprightly - and even more so this year.

Like the country, the event has suffered ups and downs. Foreign industryites canceled programs in 2005 after a sudden change in leadership, a fate that was possible again this year after a new city mayor sacked the fest's three-time director Fernando Pena.

To keep things flowing, the new boss, helmer-scribe-programmer Sergio Wolf, did something seemingly uncharacteristic of his homeland: he got organized. He put out the program and a glossy catalog a week before the April 8-20 event and expanded the number of venues. “In a country with a lot of improvisation like Argentina, this is a major achievement,” he said.

The response: killer sales.

Todd Haynes’s “I’m Not There,” Gus Van Sant’s “Paranoid Park” and Martin Scorsese’s “Shine a Light” sold out before the event even got underway. And by the sixth day, admissions were at 106,000, already twice that of the entire previous edition, and film fans were flooding the Abasto shopping mall, the glitzy focal point of the fest.

The event has impressed U.S. helmer John Gianvito (pictured right), who is attending his third edition with his history doc “Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind” in competition - and a frontrunner for the public’s vote as best film.

“Even though I had some concerns about the politics of how the directors of the festival have been replaced over the past few years, I think the soul of what this festival represents hasn’t been compromised at all,” said Gianvito, whose “The Mad Songs of Fernanda Hussein” won the special jury prize at the 2001 edition. “When I got off the plane and started looking through the program, I said, ‘This is absolute torture. There are so many good things to see and not enough time."

“The fact that the festival not only survives but is flourishing appears to be an act of resistance,” said Gianvito, who put on a two-hour DJ session one night with songs by the likes of Billy Bragg, Patti Smith and Spearhead.

Bafici was born with a rise of New Argentine Cinema, an indie movement that started in the 1990s and has yielded talent like Israel Adrian Caetano, Lucrecia Martel and Pablo Trapero. The fest proved a first outlet for many of the new crew.

“It is a festival that has helped our films and our industry to position itself in the world, something that is not easy to do,” said Veronica Cura, who is producing Martel’s latest film, the thriller “La mujer sin cabeza,” under her Aquafilms banner.

“The festival,” said Wolf, “is a place to see the filmmakers of tomorrow and we want to sustain this.”
 

Photos by Charles Newbery.