Gary Dretzka
Noah Forrest
Leonard Klady
David Poland
Douglas Pratt
Ray Pride

April 24, 2003

This has got to be the kissiest place I've ever been, Buenos Aires.

There's the loud swffwokkk when anyone meets, even for the first time, women and men alike: a kiss on the cheek as crisp as a cartoon. And then the PDAs: no one is ashamed of a little tongue in broad daylight in Argentina.

I've been at fifth edition of the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema for a week, with a week to go, and one of the more frustrating things is also the most encouraging. It's almost impossible for press to get into some of the screenings. There's a romance about the movies as well, even some of the estimable obscurities that have been assembled festival programmers Flavia de la Fuente and Eduardo Antin, better known as Quintin, one of Argentina's most acerbic movie critics and editor of the monthly El Amante Cine (Lover of Cinema). Venues are scattered around the central part of the sprawling metropolis, but most are held at a Hoyts General Cinema multiplex in the midst of an immense mall called Abasto. The city's reputation as a cultural capital is reinforced by the intensely young crowds for all manner of programming, and among the two hundred programs open to the public, even those that seem obscure have standing-room crowds. After traveling a few thousand miles, it's frustrating for a moment to find you can't get into a movie, until you think: Oh! Sentenced to spend another two hours walking the streets of Buenos Aires! There are worse punishments.

The filmmakers, critics and programmers I'm spending time with are all anxious to get out of the deluxe confines of the mall. Built in the 1920s as an immense Art Deco open market covering over a city block, the Abasto was rebuilt in 1999 as a grandiose, upscale shopping mall by developers financed by billionaire financier George Soros. Everyone I meet in this city, wracked by political strife in recent decades and economic catastrophes the past couple years, is conversant with economic theory, history and practice, as well as whatever invective you'd care to collect about the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Yet nearby streets still burst with rundown cafes, bustling confiterias and restaurants. It's the kind of city that winds down at four at five in the morning, even on weekdays. I'm not sure who makes it to the morning press screenings, as I haven't gotten to any. Among other toos, there are too many restaurants, too much Argentine beef, too much Malbec and the conversation, spiraling amid swirls of cigarette smoke.

The BAFICI is the kind of festival I like, a convivial atmosphere among moviemakers and moviegoers that seems divorced from the marketplace, especially in a vital yet chronically disadvantaged country like this, still reeling from last year's collapse of its economy. There's a presidential election next Sunday. There are demonstrations in the street. Young documentarians have been chronicling the strife, and several with short videos here were reportedly injured in Monday conflicts with the police. I'm supposed to hear their stories tomorrow. Next Wednesday, I'll have a report on movies I've seen, stories I've heard, and why I could walk these streets a few months more. I'd try to get it all down now, but today's cappuccino is finally kicking in. And the Lorca is showing Hong Sang-Soo's Korean masterpiece, The Day A Pig Fell Into A Well. Even if I postpone savoring that film a second time, there's an early dinner scheduled for 10:30 that a vegetarian colleague summed up: "Steak, steak, steak and only one choice of salad!" One man's meat...

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