“Festivals are, above all, spaces for safeguarding diversity. And today, diversity is at risk — not only in aesthetic terms but also in political ones. Defending that plurality is, in itself, a form of resistance.”
How did you think about the programming this year: what tensions, dialogues, or surprises did you seek to generate with the chosen films?
There are two ways of approaching the concept of programming. The first would be a Platonic order: one has an idea of how things should be and goes out looking for films as if they were models that exemplify that general idea. I wouldn’t say one always has a fixed idea when programming, but my own procedure is the opposite. I actually go—at least how I imagine it—as if I were entering a landscape both familiar and unknown, with binoculars, searching for species. And as soon as a species appears that seems resplendent, singular, or perhaps endangered, or one that holds a peculiar importance for the present, that’s when I say: that is the film. From there, once I’ve collected three, four, five films that I feel must be in the festival, that begins to generate a pattern of search, because those will be the ones with which the others must dialogue.
So, the construction of the programming is, I would say, a first empirical inquiry into what exists, what is available in the world of contemporary cinema over the last year or two, and, from those first choices, I try to read a pattern and build the programming around it. On this occasion, there was immediately the opening film (7 Promenades avec Mark Brown, by Pierre Creton, Vincent Barré), which I immediately saw as the central film of the festival: that’s how I conceived it. And from there, I asked myself: well, what would be the central experience of watching that film?
That led me to Aristotle’s famous dictum. That’s why in the text I wrote for the catalog I noted that knowledge is born—or begins—in wonder. In fact, it is attributed to Aristotle—he did write it—but it had already been said in earlier philosophical discussions. So that became a guiding point: films that restore the experience of wonder. Hermes Paralluelo’s film is also like that: Las muertes de Chantyorinti carries the same kind of mystery. Something happens in those films that brings back that idea of wonder, which today, in my view, has been replaced by constant perceptual overstimulation. Where wonder no longer exists, what we have instead is overstimulation, which generates in our perceptual apparatus a kind of counterfeit that is not the same thing.
At a time when the major Argentine festivals seem to play it safe with their programming, DOC Bs As still stands out for taking risks. What would you say is this year’s big gamble, and why?
Well, I take it as a compliment that you consider this festival one that takes risks. When I am in charge and I have the final say—because that’s not always the case in every place I work—I believe there should be no concessions. That doesn’t mean programming films that the audience cannot follow or understand. There has to be a dialectic between what is recognizable and what is distant, unknown. That is, between the exercise of pleasure and the exercise of effort, which can eventually also yield pleasure.
A film like Los días chinos, an absolutely enjoyable film to watch, perhaps sits at that intersection between something familiar and something that can be quite different from what one usually sees. It is also a film about wonder. So, in that sense, I absolutely refuse to make concessions. I think that would be a categorical mistake. That’s why the opening and closing films—again, I return to this—every year I have been in charge, if you look back at what we programmed, those films were the riskiest ones. They are films of considerable risk.
Perhaps the riskiest are still those by Sylvain George. These are films that demand something that is very much at stake today: attention. First of all, because of their length, right? To sit through a film that lasts more than two hours without cuts, in a theater, without checking your phone, without distraction—which I think is the spiritual affliction of our time, in the sense that consciousness dilates into dispersion, and thus one cannot truly see, pay attention, or even think. These films, simply through their form, their style, their immersion in the lives of kids wandering around Paris, who believed they had reached the territorial utopia of Europe only to find themselves repeating the same patterns of survival they endured back in Morocco—and from Morocco, all the way to France—that’s a very demanding experience. But at the same time, it is… I don’t know if “gratifying” or “edifying” is the right word, but it certainly expands the dimension of consciousness, of understanding time, of understanding the lived experience of someone in that situation.
Consequently, that is one of the “tough” films, in quotation marks. Another could be Cartas a mis padres muertos. Not tough in the same sense, but a film of complete freedom—yet from that total freedom one can infer a certain difficulty, especially for someone not accustomed to watching films that challenge the general structures of narrative, whether fiction or non-fiction.
What young filmmakers or films do you feel embody the festival’s spirit of renewal this year?
Well, I don’t know how young they are. I do believe they’re younger than you and me, no doubt about that (laughs). But Disposable Love is an important film. Azul Aizenberg, I think, has made something completely… well, it doesn’t feel like more of the same in the sense of being a family film, but in another sense, it’s not more of the same because it refuses reconciliation in its rereading of the family. In reality, it’s simply using a nearby sign—family life itself—and, from that, it condenses how the relationship between an era, a form of politics, a form of economy, and the construction of familial, affective, and economic subjectivity is inscribed. It’s a remarkable film, one that works primarily with archival material, and it is, truly, of unique bravery.
The other films I find important, in the sense you ask, are those of the Atehortúa brothers. Both Federico and Jerónimo often work together: one directs, the other writes, but their films are siblings, so to speak. Of the three films we are showing by the brothers, Forenses is the most important. I think they carry something of that youthful spirit of renewal, but at the same time, it’s not just an experience of youth, or of an epochal or generational gaze. It is that, but they are also fully aware of the traditions of cinema.
I believe that’s the best conjunction: the intersection between youthful experience—which is not always rebellious, something more evident than ever today—and the knowledge of cinematic traditions. With that, yes, one can exercise certain rebellions, certain operations of testing and creating distance with respect to what has been filmed within those traditions.
How do you think the festival audience has changed in recent years, and what do you hope to provoke in them?
I honestly don’t know if the audience has changed over these years. My impression is that it’s a mix: the regulars of the Lugones theater, some cinephiles who have not abandoned theaters and are not content with links or streaming platforms, along with a few people coming from film schools. That’s more or less what I detect, plus the people each film brings for one reason or another: families, friends, subjects. So, in that sense, I don’t really see a change… It’s only what I can perceive; I can’t say for sure.
As for what I want to provoke: first of all, not to aggress the audience. We live in a culture of permanent aggression, where disparagement is the ubiquitous rhetoric in which we are immersed, whether or not the President has recently toned down his abrupt insults. The climate of insults is constant. So, to think about programming is also to think about going in the opposite direction of that culture of disparagement. Therefore: not to aggress, above all.
And secondly, to provide a set of poetics that serve as cognitive and sensorial stimuli, works that are not circulating on platforms, in theaters, or even in some festivals. Why? Because I believe festivals are spaces for safeguarding diversity. And diversity is somewhat at risk today. I would even say not only aesthetically, but also politically.
For me, two of the most important readings of my life are William James’s A Pluralistic Universe and The Varieties of Religious Experience. These are two books I adore, and both point toward a kind of affection for the incredible variety of forms that life can take. From that perspective, I try to think about programming, even if it sounds ambitious—or perhaps even foolish.
Beyond the screenings, DOC Bs As always includes conversations with filmmakers and specialists. What value do those spaces of dialogue hold for you within the festival?
Look, I would actually like to have more spaces for conversations; I would host a talk every single day. In fact, my fantasy would be this: the festival begins on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday morning, from 10 to 12, we sit down in the theater to discuss the three films of the program with the audience—and, if the directors are present, with them as well. That’s literally what I would want. But of course, I don’t have the theaters; the theaters only open in the afternoon.
That would be my dream: a complete festival would be one that introduces words as a key dimension in our relationship with images and sounds. In other words, if there is no irruption of language within the programming, within the festival experience, in my view the festival loses one of its core foundations. And even more so in a festival like this one, which is a call to the cinema of the real—it would lose its connection to knowledge.
That’s why the catalog, the texts, and the presentations are carefully prepared, and why the talks exist as well. I would like—let me insist on this—beyond these three specific talks, one of which is linked to the programming through the retrospective of Daniela Seggiaro, while the other two are more loosely connected, dealing with the role of language in relation to cinema: in this case, a film magazine and a book.
On top of that, I would add an analytical discussion the day after every film shown in the festival. And now that I’m saying this out loud, I think next time I’ll try to secure an alternative venue just for that. Whoever wants to come can come; and if I end up speaking alone, well, I’ll speak alone (laughs).
What challenges does organizing a film festival involve in the current context of budget cuts and austerity policies toward culture promoted by Javier Milei’s government?
It’s not only about the budget cuts, not only the difficulty of putting on a festival today—negotiating screening fees, making it understood that we simply cannot pay, not being able to cover travel costs for directors coming from abroad, who end up paying for their own tickets, and not even being able to provide them with a hotel—since today paying for a hotel in Argentina is equivalent to paying for a hotel in Europe. Everything becomes very, very arduous.
When I see other festivals that do have budgets, that invite and pay, I think: how lucky they are! We don’t have that luck. We have the opposite kind of luck: that many directors respect the festival and therefore come anyway, which for me is both a blessing and something to be deeply grateful for.
That said, with all our efforts—and having lost our producer, Marcelo Céspedes, who passed away, and with him perhaps it would have been easier—with Carmen and a few others who help us, we do what we can. We managed to secure some funds here and there, but it is very difficult to carry this out in the way we do.
Yet there is something even harder: to endure and to overcome the spirit of defeat that pervades this era. At times I feel as though people have surrendered to the prevailing order. And I am not willing to surrender. As long as I can sustain desire, with commitment and with work, one can achieve far more than what should be possible, and we are not going to be stopped by rhetoric. And not only our own rhetoric—let’s add to it a rhetoric of general enrichment.
I believe surrender is not an option. And I disagree with some of the ideas circulating as supposed responses to the current situation here and globally. The idea of deserting. I do not believe we must desert. I do not believe we must surrender. If we are here, we must be here face to face, saying what must be said, refusing to be silent, and insisting.