Author: Robert Koehler

BAFICI, Day 6
By Robert Koehler

Fernando Solanas has appeared at BAFICI with the optimistic culmination of his trilogy of films examining the state of things past and present in Argentina–Dormant Argentina, in which he makes a lengthy, substantial argument that few countries in the Western Hemisphere are better prepared for a technological explosion. He extends the critique he delivered with fierce energy in his La dignidad de los nadies and Memoria del saqueo, that privitization and “neo-liberalism” has robbed Argentina of resources and talent, but that the country’s scientific, technological and labor base provides a strong …

Abasto Shopping Mall in Buenos Aires

BAFICI, Day 5
By Robert Koehler

Some additional thoughts on M˙sica nocturna….The film’s sense of comedy runs to such moments as a droll exchange between two of the characters, perambulating around the streets and finding themselves in a bookstore that’s actually closed but that they have somehow gotten into anyway, about how the Papacy in Rome has commissioned writers acquainted with Latin to devise new Latin terms for contemporary terms, like “hot pants.” It’s part of the film’s greater fabric, which is to ponder (in thoughtful and light ways) how the inheritance of …

The Island at the End of the World (2005)

BAFICI, Day 4
By Robert Koehler

Of the several “retros & focus” sections that BAFICI has organized this year–organizers swore to me weeks ago that they would trim down from last year’s bulging 15 or so retrospectives, but being true cinephiles, they simply couldn’t help themselves, and have arranged 19 for our viewing pleasure–I most want to catch the surveys of Luc Moullet, Malaysian filmmaker Ho Yuhang and 23-year-old Filipino artist Raya Martin. Now, 23 seems like an awfully young age to have a retrospective, but as I noted to Quintin …

Tout refleurit

BAFICI, Day 3
By Robert Koehler

Now that I’ve washed Kim Ki-duk right out of my hair, on to stuff that matters…like the fascinating co-mingling of life and death that I found yesterday running through AurÈlien Gerbault’s intriguing and personal portrait of Pedro Costa, Tout refleurit (whose English title, All Blossom Again, hints at some of the film’s innate optimism about the filmmaking process), Claire Simon’s engrossing and brave «a br˚le, and the final film from that greatest of filmmaking couples, Straub-Huillet, Quei loro encontri (whose title translates roughly as “Those They Encounter” and which I …

BAFICI, Day 2
By Robert Koehler

All festivals must get smaller. That much is obvious in the scattered world of film festivals, where the urge to spread like kudzu is almost universally irresistible. (A notable exception–and one wouldn’t think of it–is Cannes, which has pretty much kept to its self-imposed limits for each section, with the one variation being the recent addition of the way-out-there-past-the-marina “Tous Les Cinemas du Monde” section, which nobody goes to anyway…)

So…BAFICI is getting bigger, like every other festival. I’m awaiting word on the total number of features, but if the catalog is 512 pages …

Robert Koehler, who writes for Variety, Cinema Scope, Cineaste, and other publications, is not only one of the most dependable and active critics in Los Angeles, but he’s also a friendly and engaging cinephile. We’ve crossed paths at several film events–including a lengthy conversation after the Q&A for Honor of the Knights at this year’s Palm Springs International Film Festival–and he has graciously agreed to send in some exclusive festival reports from the Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival, where he is serving on the jury for the international competition. –Doug

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By Robert Koehler…