Primo películas

>> Festivalíssimo celebrates the cinema and art of Latin America and the Iberian peninsula

LUST IN TRANSLATION: El pasado

by MARK SLUTSKY

There’s a festival for everything in this city, so if the Montreal’s sizeable Latin American communities want a film fest of their own, who are we to stop them?

We all win with Festivalíssimo, now in its 12th edition, a celebration of cinema from all reaches of the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking world, and the city’s premiere, and possibly only, “ibéro-latinoaméricain” film festival. But movies aren’t the only attractionissimos, as concerts and art shows are on the agenda as well, a multimedia experience guaranteed to drive home the point that you live in a snowy wasteland far from South America’s comforting climes.

The festival features quite a few films new to Montreal screens, though the one I’m personally most interested in seeing screened at FNC already. That would be Carlos Reygadas’s Silent Light, which was a big critical hit last year on the film fest circuit—I managed to miss it at at least two film festivals myself. Set in Mexico’s Mennonite community (betcha didn’t even know they had one), it’s meant to be a gorgeous, slow-moving tale of forbidden love.

Ano uña (Year of the Nail) is a new film by Jonás Cuarón, son of the more famous Alfonso (betcha didn’t even know he had one). Taking a page from La Jetée, the movie is told entirely through still images, and it’s the story of a young Mexican boy who falls in love with an older, American woman—kind of like Y Tu Mama Tambien, tambien.

Speaking of Y Tu Mama, Gael Garcia Bernal can be seen in El pasado, the new film from Argentine director Hector Babenco (Kiss of the Spider-Woman). Bernal plays a translator with amnesia who has trouble creating a new life for himself. In Rafa Cortés’s Yo, it’s another man’s life who haunts the lead character, a labourer in Majorca suspicious about the fate of his predecessor.

STILL LIFE: Ano uña

DICTATOR DRAMAS

Politics and the past are the subject of a few films in the festival. Estebán Schroeder’s Matar a todos (Kill Them All) is set in the Uruguay of the early ’90s, and is a drama about a biochemical engineer who worked on chemical weapons for Pinochet. Ricardo Darin’s La señal is set in ’50s Argentina, during the dying days of Eva Peron, and looks to be a noirish tale of a private detective in over his head.

The 1970s in Brazil’s Jewish community (betcha didn’t even know they had one) is the setting of the fest’s closing night film, O ano em que meus pais saíram de ferias (The Year My Parents Went on Vacation), from director Cao Hamburger, who definitely has the best name ever. It’s about a kid whose parents go into hiding from the country’s military dictatorship, and who’s left to fend for himself in multicultural São Paolo.

Argentina’s film scene is one of the most interesting in the world right now, and in addition to a bunch of films from that country, there’s one specifically about its movie industry. Upa! Una película argentina is about a group of three friends who band together to make a film against all odds. It’s directed by three people—Tamae Garateguy, Santiago Giralt and Camila Toker—so it might be fair to assume the film is somewhat autobiographical.

Not all films are new—Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí’s near-80-year-old surrealist landmark film Un chien andalou, or, ahem, Un perro andaluz will be screened at the Cinéma du Parc on Thursday, March 20, with live musical accompaniment by Damian Nisenson.

And of course there are the musical performances—free daily (March 18–21) lunchtime concerts in what is easily the most depressing possible venue, the Place Alexis-Nihon mall. Hey, if you’ve gotta be there anyway, maybe it’ll brighten up your day. The festival does end with a concert in an actual venue, as Afro-Cuban hip hoppers The Roberto Lopez Project and DJ El Padrino do it up; that’s at Kola Note on Saturday, March 22.

Finally, a couple of painting exhibits round out the festival: the Art Feria event features work by Iberian and Latin American artists, with shows at Café Volver (5604 Parc) and (sigh) Place Alexis-Nihon.

Festivalíssimo runs from March 12–27;
for more information, see www.festivalissimo.ca

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