A Professional without Borders. The case of the documentary filmmaker Carlos Echeverría in Germany and Argentina (original) (raw)
Related papers
Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture, 2023
While much has been written about Argentine political documentary during the 1960s and 1970s, less has been said about post-dictatorship political documentaries. This article will consider the films Cuarentena: Exilio y regreso (1983) and Juan, como si nada hubiera sucedido (1987) by Carlos Echeverría, an independent filmmaker who focuses on the return to democracy and reflections on the recent past. Cuarentena: Exilio y regreso is about Osvaldo Bayer's experiences and fervent desire to return to his homeland. Osvaldo Bayer is an Argentine writer who was exiled in Germany during the dictatorship. Juan, como si nada hubiera sucedido is one of the most important Argentine films of the last thirty years, as it is among the first documentaries to address the subject of the forced disappearance of people during the last military dictatorship. The film contains interviews with military officers who held high positions during the period, asking them about the roles they played in political disappearances.
Comunicacion y Medios, 2019
Resumen Este artículo constituye el diario del proceso de pro-ducción de un documental que busca crear un mapa cinematográfico de los imaginarios locales de la posdictadura argentina. De este modo, traza el desarrollo y despliegue de un proyecto que utiliza el cine como medio, tanto en su recepción como en su po-tencial creativo para documentar y dar cuenta de ma-nera artística de fenómenos sociales que permiten comprender el multifacético, entreverado y polisémi-co conjunto de imaginarios sociales de la memoria de la dictadura cívico-militar argentina y la consiguiente transición democrática. Este viaje cinematográfico supone un ingreso al laberinto dantesco que se de-sarrolla en el espacio liminal entre lo imaginario y lo real. En este despliegue, experiencias vividas de manera íntima resuenan en demostraciones públicas del placer y del trauma que conducen a un espacio aún por definir entre el documental y la ficción. Abstract This article constitutes the diary of a documentary in the making, one that aims to create a cinematic map of the local imaginaries of post-dictatorship transition. The unfolding project it charts uses film as a medium-both its reception by audiences and its creative potential as a mode of documenting and expressing social phenomena artistically-in order to map and produce fresh understanding of the multifaceted and layered, polysemous set of social imaginaries of the memory of Argentina's civic-military dictatorship and the ensuing post-dictatorship transition to democracy. This cinematic journey into the Dantesque labyrinth of the imaginary unfolds in the liminal space between the imagination and the real. In doing so, intimate lived experience resonates through public displays of trauma and pleasure, taking us into a yet-to-be-defined space that is neither documentary nor fiction.
"Cinema and Recent Past in Argentina"
In Argentina, the last military dictatorship ruled between 1976 and 1983. Since the return of democracy in December of 1983, a variety of means have—to a large extent—made it possible to unravel and represent the horror endured during the years of the so-called “National Reorganization Process.” The aim of this presentation is to address the different discourse strategies used in motion pictures representing the kidnapping, torture, and forced disappearance of persons during the last military dictatorship. To this end, I have selected Argentine films that, having been produced in different decades, allow me to trace an historical evolution in the treatment of this topic. These films portray the adaptation to life in illegal detention centers in different ways. From an analytical perspective, my starting point in each chapter is a “memory cycle” (Da Silva Catela 2006), a concept I shall often resort to, since it defines the different socio-historical periods in post-dictatorship Argentina.
Social identities, 2013
This paper explores the relations between the film that ushered a new era of political documentary filmmaking in Argentina -- Fernando Birri and the Santa Fe Documentary School’s _Tire die ́_ [Throw me a dime] (1960)-- and development theories, which sought to produce ‘underdevelopment’ as an object of knowledge within the geopolitical context of the late 1950s. _Tire die ́_ draws its title from a sequence showing dozens of shantytown children shouting this phrase while running alongside a train. Instead of situating the conditions for the making of _Tire die ́_ strictly within the trajectory of Argentine cinema’s political radicalization, this article links them to development theories originating in the US and in supranational institutions. Although focused on development, these theories also defined underdevelopment by elaborating a series of premises, equivalencies and symbols. When adopted and modified by Argentine political discourse, these theories came to constitute a new prism through which to examine and show social and economic marginality, equating it with underdevelopment. This article demonstrates that _Tire die ́_ deploys a documentary gaze on social and economic marginality that, while taking up characteristic categories of development discourse, both subverts its original connotations and critiques the false promise embodied in capitalist development.
Young Argentine Filmmakers: Remembering the Past in Times of Crisis
Latin American Studies: Critiques of Contemporary Cinema, Literatures, Politics and Revolution (David Gallagher ed.) , 2011
In this essay, I reflect on how young filmmakers intervene in the formation of collective memory about the last Argentine dictatorship (1976-1983), contributing to the renewed societal interest on the subject. The two films I analyze share a concern with creating a more instructive and inclusive collective memory by encouraging different groups to learn from the past to inform decisions in the present. In an experimental documentary, Diario argentino/Argentine Diary (2007), Lupe Pérez García focuses on the so-called “bystanders”—those who were neither activists nor represores. She challenges their typical image as passive spectators in a war between “two demons” and highlights their role as political actors in the past and the present. Secondly, in the feature film Cordero de Dios/Lamb of God (2008), Lucía Cedrón, herself daughter of a “disappeared” activist, proposes a way of taking the past as a guide for acting in present situations of hate and violence. The 2001 crisis plays an important role in these two films and in the directors' lives. The uncertainty impels them to understand their choices in relation to their interpretation of the past and to own the decisions they make and their (political/human) implications. Keywords: Cordero de Dios, Diario Argentino, Lucía Cedrón, Lupe Pérez García, Memory and intergenerational transmission, Memory and economic crisis."""