Interview with the Mar del Plata Film Festival Director: Miguel Pereira

We spoke with the Mar del Plata’s fest director: “the Festival is THE place for Latin American cinema”. He regrets that the festival’s date is positionned right between Berlin and Cannes and woould prefer a November slot.
Miguel Pereira has strongly stated that the festival's main attractions should be movies not stars, nor famous actors or directors.

Fernando Madedo:
Miguel, can you tell us which films will be in the Official Competition?, and which will be in the first days of the Festival?

Miguel Pereira:
In the Official Competition of the Festival will include eleven countries.
In the opening weekend will be an unexpected presence of argentinean cinema.
Two films will compete on Friday: a Fernando Spiner’s film “Adios querida luna”, which is very different of what is filming nowadays, because it is a comedy and although it, it is in competition.
The day after, it’s the tribute to Pino Solanas and the world premiere of “Memoria del saqueo”.
And the following day the Fernando Birri’s tribute, and his retrospective. During those three days is presented Pablo Reyero’s film “La cruz del sur” (“The southern cross”) which has obtained an important award in Cannes.
On Sunday Daniel Burman’s film “El abrazo partido” that has won the Silver Bear in Berlin.
There are, in different narrative styles and in different generations, a strong conglomerate of the argentinean cinema, where it is possible to see his future and his past. This is a very symbolic thing that takes place in the Festival.

Official Competition (14 titles):

Adiós Querida Luna - Argentina/Fernando Spiner
Buena Vida Delivery - Argentina/Leonardo Di Césare
The Blue Light – Japón/Yukio Ninagawa
El Lápiz del Carpintero/The Carpenter’s Pencil – España/Antón Reixa
Tristan – Francia/Philippe Harel
Blue Butterfly – Canadá/Léa Pool
Gone - Alemania/Zoltan Paul
Konjanik - Croacia/Branko Ivanda
Paloma de Papel/Paper Dove - Perú/Fabrizio Aguilar
Touching the Void – Gran Bretaña/Kevin Macdonald
Dealer – Hungría/Benedek Fliegauf
Mi piace lavorare/Mobbing – Italia/Francesca Comencini
O Outro Lado da Rua – Brasil/Marcos Bernstein
Kaldaljós – Islandia/Hilmar Oddsson

Official Section - out of competition:

Carandiru – Brasil/Héctor Babenco – Opening Night
Il Cuore Altrove – Italia/Pupi Avati – Closing Night

Dans le Rouge du Couchant – Francia/España/Edgardo Cozarinsky
Memoria del Saqueo – Argentina/Suiza/Pino Solanas
El Abrazo Partido/The Last Embrace – Argentina/Alemania/Daniel Burman
Segui Le Ombre – Italia/Lucio Gaudino
Suite Habana - Cuba/España/Fernando Pérez

By Fernando Madedo
fernandomadedo@hotmail.com
From Argentina for filmfestivals.com