Ventana Al Sur-- despues

This show (at Anthology Film Archive in NYC Feb 21) was a huge success: sold out, chock full of experimentalists, interested Argentines and who knows who else. We served Yerba Mate (and left a gourd with Anthology house manager and supreme avant garde maker Bradley Eros) and churros from the Buenos Aires Bakery in Queens. Liliana Porter generously answered questions about her wry and witty film For You/Para Usted (which closed out the program) afterwards. Some in the audience were worried about sharing the mate gourds before the program, but most dove right in, passing the tea and thumbing their noses at the notion of sharing germs. They say mate doesn't have caffeine in it, but it has SOMETHING, and it seemed to add to the experience of the night. I noticed in Collete's "The Pure and the Impure" a woman in an opium den makes a big show of drinking mate.The show was comprised of super 8, video and a single 35mm film, carried straight from Buenos Aires by our film mule, Sofia Gallisa. It was wonderful to see this varied, vibrant work crackling on the screen in the East Village. This was not meant to be a definitive snapshot of the zeitgeist of Argentine experimental film, more like a sampler, a disparate mix of films that lead us into unfamiliar worlds. More on the show at invisible cinema.

Jeanne Diehlmann

Greater minds than mine have grappled with this monumental film, so I'll only wax enthusiastic about the EXPERIENCE of seeing it in a stunning new print at the Film Forum in NY this afternoon. I'd only seen it on VHS a couple of times, and seeing it in a theatre was an experience different in kind, not degree. Like all great films it demands its own psychological space, daring you to accept the world on its own terms. In the absence of conventional narrative spikes, I was able to see the beauty and complication in quotidian rhythms, something I tend to overlook if I'm following a plot. The scene of the protagonist quietly sipping coffee while Belgian streetlife buzzes outside remains one of my favorites. For some reason I found the 'narrative' in the theatre particularly fractious (perhaps in the absence of conventional narrative elements on the screen). An older gentleman screeched at a man who was supposed texting during the screening, and even went to get a manager! This reminds me of what friend of mine told me about a screening of Warhol's Empire--he tended to over emphasize the things we usually ignore in a theatre setting: a man coughing, a woman crossing her legs, etc etc.