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In keeping with its historical support of Latin American cinema throughout the years, the San Sebastian International Film Festival will this year make an extra push for Argentina’s cinema industry, which has been in a state of crisis since March after its newly-elected far-right leader Javier Milei moved ahead with plans to withdraw all state funding from its film body, the National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts (INCAA).
The state body backs most Argentinian films, festivals and events – including major Latin American festival Ventana Sur (which has now been relocated from Buenos Aires to Montevideo, Uruguay) – and the impact the lack of funding will have on the country’s sector will be, according to many industry insiders, devastating.
As a result, San Sebastian is hosting a day of action on September 24 and has teamed up with the Argentine Academy of Cinematography Arts and Sciences and producer Gabriel Hochbaum along with a raft of Argentinian production companies, filmmakers and journalists for the event. That day will see the world premiere of Official Selection title The Man Who Loved UFOs (El Hombre Que Amaba Los Platos Voladores) from Argentine filmmaker Diego Lerman as well as an international premiere of Nicolás Gil Lavedra’s non-fiction title Traslados. The latter, which was released in Argentina on September 5, focuses on the so-called death flights, one of the popular execution techniques used by Argentina’s last military dictatorship.
“We want to support Argentinian cinema because for them it is very complicated”, says San Sebastian festival director José Luis Rebordinos. “In this moment, the government is killing the industry of cinema in Argentina.” He adds that on the day of solidarity, the festival will “read a statement supporting the industry there.”
Festival selection committee member Javier Martín, who is San Sebastian’s delegate for Latin America, says the crisis in Argentina reminds him of the situation of Spanish cinema in the 1960s and 1970s during the Francisco Franco dictatorship. “There was this generation of very committed and intelligent filmmakers that managed to deal with censorship then,” he says. “There were so many projects that could never be made, and, in practice, this is the situation in Argentina now. This is not a moral censorship with Catholic values, but it is clearly an economic censorship and it’s going to be dramatic not only for Argentine cinema – but for Latin American cinema – because Argentina has always been one of the main minority co-producers in the region.”
Buenos Aires-born producer Fernanda Del Nido, the producer behind Pablo Larraín’s Neruda and Rosa’s Wedding, says the situation is “devastating” in Argentina. “If you cancel and stop all independent production for quite some time in a country like Argentina, it’s a killer,” says Del Nido, who runs Barcelona-based production company Setembro Cine. “And this could happen in any country, of course, but this could kill off the results of years of effort and investment.”
She continues: “I was lucky enough to finish two of our films that we shot there – The Wailing and Surfacing [both of which are screening in San Sebastian this year]. But the last month has been very difficult. There is so much concern of what will happen, and I can see it is going to be devastating and it will damage all the years of work and talent done by amazing industry professionals.”
Spanish producer Marisa Fernández Armenteros agrees. “It’s really sad because the stories in Argentina are amazing and necessary. They have amazing actors and an amazing industry – we cannot forget that Argentinian cinema is one of the best. But we have to approach this crisis with the same language as a politician and say, ‘Let’s create an industry and create talent and try to show this talent as a brand for the rest of the world.’ We need the stories of Argentina, its cinema, its TV and its amazing young talent.”
Martín, who says the real impact of the new situation in Argentina “won’t be fully felt until next year,” points to the fact that some of the biggest and most ambitious projects from renowned filmmakers have come from the platforms in Latin America, with Netflix backing projects in the festival’s current lineup such as Alberdi’s In Her Place (a Chilean project) and Lerman’s The Man Who Loved UFOs. “We will continue to see great production from some of the most renowned filmmakers there because of the platforms, but it’s going to be very hard for indie producers with smaller productions to finance their projects.”
The 72nd edition of the San Sebastian International Film Festival runs September 20-28, 2024.
