The Southwest Film Center will present five films from Argentina this weekend during an Argentine Film Festival sponsored by the Latin American and Iberian Institute, SOLAS and the Media Arts Department.
The films, most of which come from the mainstream Argentine film milieu, will span every genre from gritty action to documentary to comedy.
The first, "Cheers," filmed in 2000 by Lucho Bender, takes an unabashed and ironic look at the reverence afforded to holidays. It's Christmas Eve in Buenos Aires, and despite the suffocating heat and human condition, common people feel obligated to celebrate - no matter what. But behind this facade of happiness lies the truth - existence rife with egoism and misery. Press clippings hint at an amusing result as everyone acts in a way nobody, not even themselves, expected.
The second film in the series, "Pizza, Birra, Faso," translated as "Pizza, Beer, Smokes," follows the hardscrabble existence of a marginal gang of five teenagers robbing and hustling to get by in gritty Buenos Aires. The leader of this band of delinquents, El Cordobes, has grown frustrated by the chain of command - the requirement that a chunk of his gang's booty go to a leader higher in the pecking order of the local mafia.
Now, with his girlfriend pregnant, El Cordobes decides to make some changes. His gang will no longer rely on the mafia; instead, they will do everything on their own. With an anticipated huge windfall from a planned robbery, he and his gang will move to Uruguay to start over. But operating on your own as a criminal in Buenos Aires proves much harder than El Cordobes and his cohorts expected. "Pizza, Birra, Faso" was directed in 1998 by Adrian Caetano and Bruno Stagnaro.
Next up is the critically acclaimed 1999 film "Crane World," about a forgotten rock star trying to support his working class family in unstable Buenos Aires. Rulo works as a crane operator for a construction company.
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In his off time, he cooks for his friends, tinkers with his battered car and tries to keep his family together. When he is rejected for a promotion and subsequently laid off, Rulo is forced to leave burgeoning Buenos Aires for undeveloped Patagonia, 1,000 miles south. According to one Village Voice reviewer, "Crane World's" tenderness and tenacity, and its portrayal of the dichotomy between urban and rural Argentina make it a remarkable film.
"The Books and the Night" is the fourth film in the series, which travels around the country as a package. Combining documentary with fiction, "Night" immortalizes the life and work of distinguished writer Jorge Luis Borges.
"War Boot," the final film in the series, chronicles the human cost, especially to children, of the country's last dictatorship. It outlines several of the goals of what has come to be known as "disappearance," the mysterious removal without a trace of anyone who challenged the regime - effectively immobilizing resistance to the dictatorship by incubating terror among the country's citizens. "War Boot" was directed in 1999 by David Blaustein.
Robyn Cote, program coordinator for the Latin American and Iberian Institute, said the film series is part of a cultural exchange agreement signed last year between UNM and the Universidad Nationale de General San Martin in Buenos Aires. The institute hopes to coordinate similar exchanges with other campus programs in the future, she said.
Alberto Pochettino, director of the Buenos Aires graduate program, will introduce the films.
"Cheers" will run Friday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. "Pizza, Birra, Faso" shows Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 9 p.m. "Crane World" will run Friday at 9 p.m. and Sunday at 7 p.m. "The Books and the Night" will run Saturday at 9 p.m. and Sunday at 5 p.m. "War Boot" will be screened Saturday at 5 p.m.
The Southwest Film Center is in Room 2018 of the Center for the Arts. Tickets are $4 for general admission and $3 for students, faculty and senior citizens.
