With a slogan that reveals ignorance and a grotesque AI-generated promotional video, the 40th Mar del Plata Film Festival begins its journey with alarming signs.

The official launch of the 40th Mar del Plata International Film Festival, held this afternoon at the Teatro Colón in the seaside city, raised more doubts than certainties about the direction the country’s most important film event will take. For the first time, the international festival was formally presented from its official venue and will take place from November 6 to 16—dates that previous festival directors had strategically chosen to avoid overlapping with the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, aiming to encourage international guests to attend. Under the flashy and grandiose slogan “The Rebirth of Splendor,” the new leadership of INCAA and the festival’s artistic direction showed a concerning lack of understanding of what it takes to organize a cultural event of this scale. INCAA president Carlos Pirovano emphasized that the festival “needs the spirit and soul of the people of Mar del Plata to be unique,” a rhetorical strategy that attempts to make up with words for what is clearly missing in terms of planning, cinematic vision, and cultural sensitivity. The official promotional video, created with artificial intelligence, was described by many attendees as grotesque and dehumanized, revealing a total disconnect from the essence of cinema and from the work of hundreds of visual artists, filmmakers, and technicians who have historically shaped the identity of the festival.

The event was presented as if its value depended solely on attracting stars and “big-name figures,” exposing a superficial understanding of cinema as a hollow spectacle, rather than as art, dialogue, and collective memory. The supposed “renewal” seems more focused on celebrity presence than on strengthening national and independent cinema. The artistic direction, led by Jorge Stamadianos and Gabriel Lerman—confirmed for the role after a much-criticized 2024 edition—proposes the addition of new sections such as an international short film competition and a space for TV series, blurring the traditional profile of the festival without a clear justification or a strong curatorial vision. The previous edition was heavily criticized for its low attendance, empty screenings, and the lack of basic incentives like affordable tickets for students and retirees—an issue that was only addressed at the last minute, with little to no effect.

The general impression is that the Mar del Plata Film Festival, a landmark of Latin American cinema and the only A-category festival in the region, is experiencing a leadership crisis. What should be a celebration of cinema and its diversity has become, under the current administration, a dim and poorly managed spectacle, where improvisation and inexperience prevail. Far from a “rebirth of splendor,” what seems to be emerging is a directionless, shallow, and soulless model of a film festival.