/ARTS WEEKLY/ FILM-PARAGUAY: First Digital Steps in a Nascent Industry

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Alejandro Sciscioli

ASUNCION, Jun 17 2003 (IPS) - The premiere of the Paraguayan film "miramenometokéi" has been accompanied by signs of a nascent audiovisual industry in a country where film production has long been little more than a mirage.

Another Paraguayan film is awaiting its debut date and a third is being shot, while two projects are still in the pre-production phase.

"miramenometokéi", based on the true story of a love triangle involving a young woman finishing her secondary school studies, her boyfriend and her boss, premiered here in late May. The title phonetically in Spanish means, roughly, "look at me, he didn’t touch me."

The film’s arrival in the theatres brought positive comments from film critics, who consider it the high point – to date – of the Paraguayan film industry’s brief history, for its technical aspects as well as for its screenplay and cinematic narrative.

Director Enrique Collar sees the current Paraguayan film phenomenon as a direct result of digital technology. "It seems Paraguay in many respects lives just steps between medievalism and postmodernism, and now we are going from no national films to a full-blown movement," he said.

Collar, who is also known for his talent in the fine arts, clarifies that it is not his intention to talk about a burgeoning industry per se, but rather the growth of what he describes as "cinematic artisanry".

The opportunity has finally arisen for filmmaking to get off the ground, after decades of sporadic production, marked by isolated endeavours and almost zero support from the state.

Paraguayan film is like a phantom, with few projects, "and whose principal characteristic has been co-productions (with other countries) in some 20 feature films," says director Hugo Gamarra, head of the Paraguayan Film Library Foundation and Visual Archive.

"With five million people, Paraguay is a country of a truly oral culture, without a tradition or even legislation for promoting cinema, without an audiovisual institute or public television," Gamarra pointed out in a conversation with IPS.

But two years ago, a new wave of efforts began as a result of access to digital technology, which provides creative autonomy and independence in production.

As a fruit of this new reality, the film "María Escobar" debuted. Directed by Galia Giménez, it is based on a popular folk song. Sources from the movie theatre business confirmed that the film broke box office records in Paraguay in 2001.

This month, "Réquiem por un soldado" (Requiem for a Soldier) is touring the country. Also by Giménez, the film portrays episodes of the war in the 1930s between Paraguay and Bolivia.

A graduate of the Moscow Film Institute, Giménez has emerged as Paraguay’s most prolific audiovisual artist. She is working on her third film, as yet untitled, based on a novel about the experiences of a group of young people during the Alfredo Stroessner dictatorship (1954-1989).

Still to begin shooting is "Supremo por siempre", by Enrique Hellmers, which recounts the history of dictator Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, who ruled Paraguay form 1813 to 1840.

In pre-production, meanwhile, is "La santa", by noted short-film directors Juan Carlos Maneglia and Tana Schembori. The plot involves a singer who looks like the Virgin Mary, which leads to a series of misunderstandings.

Another filmmaker, Meli Rockhold Peña, agrees that digital technology has served as a springboard for the recent line-up of film productions.

"It is simpler and easily accessible technology. As a result people are doing things. All recent works were done in digital format, which in strict terms is not cinema. But undoubtedly it is an excellent exercise in producing feature-length films," she told IPS.

Rockhold Peña, graduate of the University of Southern California film workshops, applauds the initiative of local filmmakers, and at the same time criticises the government for failing to foment this artistic activity among Paraguayans and for not giving foreign directors the necessary guarantees to shoot in this country.

She proposes that the government should set up a Film Commission that would be financed by a small tax on movie theatre tickets, as is the case in neighbouring Argentina. The funds would then be channelled to help local directors put out films "made in Paraguay".

Except for "Supremo por siempre", which is being filmed in 35 mm format, the Paraguayan films now showing on the big screen or in production are in digital format.

"miramenometokéi" is the only film among these that received state support: approximately 18,000 dollars that financed 40 percent of the production expenses.