Argentina’s embattled film sector took center stage this afternoon at the San Sebastian Film Festival as festival delegates held an official demonstration to highlight the struggles facing the country’s film institutions.
The demonstration was hosted by San Sebastian along with the Argentine Film Academy. Filmmakers from the Argentinian titles in competition at San Sebastian gathered on the stairs of the Kursaal Auditorium, the festival’s main hub, alongside other festival delegates where San Sebastian head José Luis Rebordinos gave a speech.
“Today the San Sebastian Film Festival, as the cultural expression that it is, cannot simply sit back and watch the dismantling of a national film industry by a government which, in addition, justifies a military dictatorship responsible for murdering thousands of people,” Rebordinos said.
The demonstration coincided with the premiere of Argentine filmmaker Diego Lerman’s film El hombre que amaba los platos voladores.
This year’s San Sebastian Festival will screen 16 films produced totally or partially in Argentina across the Official Selection, New Directors, Horizontes Latinos, Zabaltegi-Tabakalera, and Movies for Kids sections. The festival’s industry section will also feature six Argentine projects selected for the Europe-Latin American Co-Production Forum, two works in progress in WIP Latam, and one Ikusmira Berriak Project with the participation of an Argentine production company.
As part of today’s demo, San Sebastian also announced a new joint initiative with the Malaga Festival, which will see the two festivals programme six Spanish productions in Buenos Aires for a short run between 27 November to 1 December. The short programme will be replicated on the same days at the Ventana Sur audiovisual market, which has now relocated to Uruguay.
Argentina’s film industry has been in freefall since March when the government of Javier Milei, the country’s far-right leader, pushed through highly controversial plans to defund all state funding to the National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts (INCAA), the country’s national film body.
The San Sebastian Film Industry runs until September 28.
Full statement made by the Director of the San Sebastian Festival, José Luis Rebordinos
The Executive of the San Sebastian Film Festival wishes to voice its solidarity with the Argentine film industry in view of the exceptional situation it is suffering due to the paralysis of many of its projects, the emptying of content from the INCAA, and to the measures being taken by this government, which endanger the development, not only of its film industry, but also of other expressions of its culture.
The Executive of the San Sebastian Film Festival wishes to make it clear that this support is not intended as interference of any kind in the politics of Argentina. For years we have worked with an INCAA which has had numerous political colours corresponding to both conservative and liberal governments, as well as others of a Peronist nature. Under all of these, and each with their own characteristics which the people of Argentina themselves must define, the Argentine industry has been able to function normally and to become one of the most important in Latin America, projecting a positive image of the country and acting as its economic driving force.
Today the San Sebastian Film Festival, as the cultural expression that it is, cannot simply sit back and watch the dismantling of a national film industry by a government which, in addition, justifies a military dictatorship responsible for murdering thousands of people.
Strength to Argentine cinema!
