This May 23, National Cinema Day is celebrated in Argentina, in tribute to the first film screened in the country, The May Revolution, directed by Mario Gallo and premiered in 1909 at the Ateneo Theater in Buenos Aires.
For this reason, we review five classics of national cinema.
Camila (1984)
The romantic epic of Maria Luisa Bemberg starring Susu Pecoraro and Imanol Arias It is based on the true story of an impossible love that occurred during the rosismo in Argentina, in the mid-19th century.
The film recreates the romance between the aristocratic Camila O’Gorman (Susú Pecoraro) and the priest Ladislao Gutierrez (Imanol Arias) during the Government of Juan Manuel de Rosas in Buenos Aires, and how they were sentenced to death for that “sacrilege.”
Nazareno Cruz and the Wolf (1975)
The film directed by the legendary leonardo favio It is already part of the annals of native cinema. The fantasy drama that adapts the local legend of wolfis based on the homonymous radio play by Juan Carlos Chiappe and, For many years, it was the highest-grossing film in the history of its country with a record of 4,000,000 spectators.. A key milestone in the history of national cinema and one of Favio’s masterpieces.
Gatica, the ono (1993)
But if we are talking about Leonardo Favio’s masterpieces, the film that tells the rise and fall of the Argentine boxer José María Gatica It is, without a doubt, a perfect portrait of the hero’s journey and the monomyth that the American writer Joseph Campbell knew how to analyze and condense so well. Furthermore, the life of “Mono” helps the director from Mendoza to draw a parallel with Peronism and the creation of popular myth.
Waiting for the float (1985)
What can we say that hasn’t been said about this classic Argentine comedy, directed by Alejandro Doria? “Three empanadas”, “stupid creature” or “Where is my friend?”three phrases that are already part of Argentina.
Nine Queens (2000)
The film of the early deceased Fabian Bielinsky Not only was it multi-awarded internationally, it generated an American remake and is considered a masterpiece of Argentine cinema, but it also It was a portrait of its time and predicted the debacle of 2001.
Argentine cinema manifested itself at the Cannes Festival
Nearly a hundred professionals from the Argentine cinema They demonstrated on Sunday at the Cannes Film Festivalamong them several directors who present films in the exhibition, against President Javier Milei’s cuts in culture. “The Government has undertaken a crusade against culture, science and education”read María Alché, co-director of Puanin one of the spaces of the Filmmakers’ Fortnight, attended by French colleagues and people from all over the world.
The protesters deployed a giant Argentine flag with the motto “United Argentine Cinema” and they warned that “it is very likely that film festivals in the coming years will have very little or no Argentine representation. “This does not make us freer or richer; quite the contrary, deepens the course set by President Milei: hunger, ignorance and intolerance”.
The Argentine filmmakers recalled that There are seven films participating in the different sections in this edition of the Cannes Festivalsomething that “is only possible thanks to the support of film policies that for years actively promoted our prolific and globally recognized audiovisual industry.”
