With a valuable and prolific tradition behind, a vast group of films has shown in the past years the vitality of the documentary cinema in Argentina.
They are works reflecting upon the political, social and cultural reality from quite different points of view: from the explicit and collective participation or from that “author´s documentary” searching, which sets under pressure the limits between documentary and fiction.
Andrés Di Tella's Fotografías.
) With the exploration of family and individual personal identity as well as that of the collective history as a starting point, Andrés Di Tella offered outstanding movies, such as La televisón y yo (“Tv and I”) and Fotografías (“Photographs”). The joining of both documentary and fiction elements is clearly seen in Ana Poliak´s work (¡Que vivan los crotos! –“Long Live the Beggars!”-, La fe del volcán –“The Volcano´s Faith”-, Parapalos), in Alejandro Fernández Mouján (Pulqui, un instante en la patria de la felicidad –“Pulqui, a Moment in Happiness´Homeland”-) and in Albertina Carri (Los rubios –“The Blonds”-). On this same track, we find a relevant antecedent in Gombrowicz o la seducción (“Gombrowicz or the Seduction”) by Alberto Fisherman (1986).
Other movies embody the structure of the police genre and the thriller, like Yo no sé que me han hecho tus ojos (“I don´t know what your eyes have done to me”) by Lorena Muñoz and Sergio Wolf, about Ada Falcón, a true diva of the 30s; Trelew (Mariana Arruti); and M, in which the director, Nicolás Prividera, traces back the story of his missing mother during the last military dictatorship in Argentina.
Also in the years before and immediately after the 2001 crisis, the militant cinema came back alive through groups like Boedo films, Máscaro Cine Americano, Ojo Obrero (Workman Eye), Contraimagen or Primero de Mayo (First of May) –holding ties with political parties and picketers´organizations- and they pictured that process of popular demonstrating. They are films which get back and argue about the tradition of groups born in the 60s, like Cine de Liberación (Liberation Cinema) -led by Pino Solanas and Octavio Gettino- and Raymundo Gleyzer´s Cine de las Bases (Bases Cinema).
With photographers like Eugenio Cardini and Eugenio Py, struggling to take original records, which showed the facts occurred during the first decades of XX century, the first newsreel appeared in 1922, the Film Revista Valle. Later other outstanding weekly newsreels followed, like Sucesos Argentinos (Argentine Events) and Noticiario Panamericano (Panamerican News).
Tire Dié marked a new beginning regarding the way of making documentaries.
Educated at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografía in Rome, Fernando Birri, born in Santa Fe, represented the first great breaking-off in the national documentary history by founding the Documentary School in Santa Fe, by including social sectors -which till then had been excluded by the contemporary cinema- and also by changing the ways of movie production and distribution. His most emblematic work is Tire dié (1958-60).
The breaks introduced by Birri paved the way for the emergence of undeniable makers, like Humberto Ríos (Al grito de este pueblo – “To the Cry of This People”-), Raymundo Gleyzer (Mexico, la revolución congelada –“Mexico, the Frozen Revolution”- and Me matan si no trabajo y si traabjo me matan –“I Get Killed if I Don´t Work and if I Do, I get killed”-) and Jorge Prelorán (nominated for the Oscar for Castelao, biografía de un ilustre gallego –“ Castelao, the Biography of a Distinguished Galician”-).
La hora de los hornos, a documentary and political commitment worldwide example.
Awarded at the Mostra Internazionale del Nuovo Cinema Pesaro in 1968, La hora de los hornos –Time for the Ovens- is considered one of the most important pieces within the political cinema all over the world. Pino Solanas and Octavio Gettino´s “opera prima” showed a powerful and original voice –by melding different techniques- in order to condemn colonialism and to narrate the popular resistance struggles in Latin America. Another key movie by Cine Libearación group is El camino hacia la muerte del Viejo Reales –“The Way towards Old Man Reales´Death”-, by Gerardo Vallejo. With the coming of the new century, Solanas went back to documentaries through a set of movies he himself defines as “chronicles of the recent Argentina” and which were started with Memoria del saqueo –“Plundering Memor”-.
With the return of democracy in 1983, a new batch of documentarians emerged, among whom the search carried out by the Cine Ojo group is worth mentioning; it was led by Marcelo Céspedes and Carmen Guarini (responsible for works like Hospital Borda, un llamado a la razón –“Borda Hospital, a Call for Sense”-, Jaime de Nevares, el ultimo viaje –“Jaime de Nevares, the Last Trip”- and Tinta Roja –“Red Ink”-). Other outstanding filmmakers are Tristán Bauer (Cortázar), Carlos Echeverría (Juan, como si nada hubiera sucedido –“Juan, as if Nothing Had Happened”-), David Blaustein (Cazadores de utopias –“Utopia Hunters”-, Botín de guerra –“Spoils of War”-), Claudio Remedi (Fantasmas de la Patagonia –“Patagonia´s Ghosts”-) and Pablo Reyero (Dársena Sur –“South Dock”-, Ängeles caídos –“Fallen Angels”-).
