/ARTS WEEKLY/ FILM-PARAGUAY: Not the Normal Big Screen Fare

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Alejandro Sciscioli

ASUNCION, Oct 14 2003 (IPS) - Feature-length and short films from 22 countries are in the line-up for Paraguay’s international film festival, one of the very few opportunities in this country to see something besides Hollywood blockbusters, which fill the big screens the rest of the year.

The International Festival of Film Art and Culture, running through Oct. 16 in Asunción, has already surpassed the expectations of critics and audiences alike for the great variety and high quality of the films seen in the first week of the event.

Intended as an annual festival, organised since 1990 by the Paraguayan Cinematic and Visual Archive Foundation, it did not take place in 1999 and 2000 due to financing difficulties.

But in 2001 it returned in a non-competitive format, but with an audience vote for best film. Throughout the first nine festivals, 65 Panambí – an indigenous Guaraní term meaning butterfly – were awarded.

Hopes are running high this year for a local film, a co-production with Argentina, "Estudio para una siesta paraguaya" (Study for a Paraguayan Siesta), recorded in digital format.

Directed by Lia Danzker, it was made with the participation of a group of students from the cinematography experimentation centre of the Argentine Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts (INCAA).

"We wanted to come up with something new in relation to the styles that we are taught at the school, with roles that are not so defined and without everything being stipulated by the script and the director. We wanted to experiment with technical aspects and also delve into themes that draw us in," Eugenia Blanc, the film’s producer, told IPS.

The idea emerged to portray the hard times, the joys and the concerns of the large Paraguayan population in Buenos Aires. To remain faithful to the truth, the filmmakers contacted that community, choosing individuals – not professional actors – to work in the film.

The festival schedule, which includes productions from the past several years, includes the controversial French film "Irreversible", by Gaspar Noé, with actors Mónica Bellucci, Vincent Cassel and Albert Dupontel, and which was an official selection at the Cannes festival.

Also showing are the U.S.-made "Monster’s Ball", by Marc Forster, and which won a best actress U.S. Academy Award for Halle Berry, and "Mulholland Drive", by David Lynch.

Another highlight is the Bosnian film "No Man’s Land", by Danis Tanovic, winner of the Oscar (Academy Award) in 2002 for best foreign film.

The country with most movies participating in the festival is Argentina, with "El bonaerense", by Pablo Trapero, "Mercano the Martian", by Juan Antín, "Tan de repente" (So Suddenly), by Diego Lerman, and "Un oso rojo" (Red Bear), by Uruguayan Adrián Caetano.

The fact that this international festival is practically the only chance to see non-mainstream films – many from Latin America and Europe – is due to the lack of entrepreneurial vision for tempting movie-goers with something more than sure-fire box-office successes, say some industry critics.

Filmmaker Hugo Gamarra, founder and director of the festival, says the role of any event like this is to offer productions that do not make it to the local market through the usual commercial routes.

"Our role is fairly basic compared to other festivals, such as the independent film festival held annually in Buenos Aires," Gamarra said in a conversation with IPS.

He noted that some of the productions being shown during the Asunción event are "films that have won Oscars… and I don’t understand why they did not premiere in Paraguay, because they do have commercial potential."

The phenomenon has numerous potential explanations, said Gamarra, but none is definitive.

One of these factors involves both distributors and theatre owners. In Paraguay, these two groups "don’t worry much about diversifying what the market has to offer and they only go with sure bets. They are dependent on movies that have already proved to be hits," he said.

This film-market phenomenon in Paraguay is repeated throughout much of the rest of the world, says Gamarra. Here, the big screens are filled 80 percent by films coming out of the United States, primarily Hollywood.

"If there is a constant supply of this type of movie, that is what the public is going to consume. Ultimately the audiences become ‘colonised’ and expect only that, because they don’t develop other tastes in film," he said.

"There are films that we refer to as commercial products and art products. The definition itself provides an explanation of why the former are more popular," said Javier Bernardes, head of Filmagic Entertainment, which represents and distributes films for Buena Vista International and United International Pictures in Paraguay.

"Looking at the population pyramid, one can see that ours is a country with a vast majority of young people. And that is the group that most seeks entertainment," he said in an IPS interview.

In other markets, such as Buenos Aires, there is a large enough sector of the public that is looking for artistic alternatives to support "alternative" films, said Bernardes. "It is a sufficient number to justify the premiere of non-commercial titles," he said.

But film and theatre critic Jesús Ruiz Nestosa sees the lack of choices in the movie listings in Paraguay as simply a matter of "business sector myopia… they want only sure bets."

The distributors say that audiences want commercial movies, "but that isn’t true. I continue to believe in our people. The ones I don’t believe are the distributors," said Nestosa, professor of film studies at the Paraguayan Institute of Art and Communications Sciences, and at the Universidad Americana.

Marlene Aponte, of the Asunción newspaper ABC Color, shared her opinion with IPS that the best film of this year’s festival so far is the French "Ça commence aujourd’hui" (It All Starts Today), by Bertrand Tavernier.

"This film confronts us with a harsh and palpable reality: the poverty that day after day claims more people, with children being its most vulnerable victims," said the journalist.

According to Carlos Giménez, film critic for La Nación daily, the Argentine film "Un oso rojo", by Caetano, was the best of the festival’s first week, "for its narrative quality and the superiority of the acting."

"Its narrative draws in the viewer because it is an urban western based on the marginalized social realities of Argentina… a great fictional tale," wrote Giménez.