New Generation of Argy Filmmakers

The arrival of a new, young generation of Argentine filmmakers, many specializing is small, languid, personal tales, is far from a secret. Among other articles, in one Slate piece we noted in June, Meghan O'Rourke and James Surowiecki tried to come to terms with the boom via a weeklong trip to Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema (AKA the BAFICI). More recently, Jack Chang of McClatchy Newsapers summed up the boom in a nice trend piece. There's Enrique Piñeyro (above), whose documentary Fuerza aérea sociedad anónima famously helped take down the head of the Argentine air force; Lucrecia Martel, who helmed 2001's La Ciénaga, about a dissolute and creepy family in Salta, and 2004's La Niña santa about a, well, creepy and dissolute middle-aged doctor; and Daniel Burman, who directed Derecho de familia, Argentina's official submission to the 2007 Academy Awards for Foreign Language Film.

Of course, there's always the question of whether it's a good trend. "It's a flowering of young filmmakers who have won international influence with a cinema that is very independent. It's a very personal cinema, and it's creating excitement in the Argentine public. Before, there was prejudice among Argentines about even their own films. This movement is changing that," said actress Mercedes Moran, who starred in Martel's films. Not everyone agrees: "What 10 years ago was a breath of fresh, freeing air has become a rancid aroma of confinement," wrote Gustavo Noriega, editor of the Argentine film magazine El Amante Cine in a November piece titled "La tristeza de los niños ricos".