2023-07-08 06:46:59
Fernando Martín Peña is a crucial name in Argentine cinema. One of the most important. His way of seeing cinema has founded not so much a school, but a way of living cinema, one of, unfortunately, resistance. His curatorship in Malba, and other corners, his Film Library on Public TV, his time in public management in the direction of large festivals and his role as a journalist, teacher and more: Peña is, to fall into the cliché, a light inside the cinema Enrique Bellando, director of Ciudad de María and Camisea, is another person whose look has generated milestones in our cinema. Few documentarians have his sensitivity, and although he films less frequently than desired, his return with a documentary on Fernando Martín Peña, La vida a oscuras, is something to celebrate. Bellande himself talks regarding his relationship with Peña and why making him the protagonist of his gaze: “I have known him since 1991. The difficult thing at the time of this documentary was to go a little from the other side. There is something from the whole universe that is seen in the film that he has it, half like that, hidden, but since he is half aloof he had that fear. But I also understood that he displays himself a lot in public, in a very strong way, that is, in a certain way, in his universe, everyone knows Fernando. But I was perhaps more interested in that other part, where I realize that he needs his space and then we can see his house and other things, like he doesn’t work with other people or in his house or in the cabin, as if he were jealous of their places. His house was like his universe, I suspected that from things he was writing and that I knew. But, well, it was also a bit of discovering it and that’s why one makes movies: to learn regarding things.
—What things were appearing then in the filming that surprised you?
“The movie took a long time to finish. Some things surprised us in the middle of filming, for example the closure of Cinecolor was something that on the one hand was long announced to happen, but it happened when I was already filming. In fact, Fernando told me that just one day we were going to film with him: I had to cancel what we were going to film because I managed to get them to let me in on the last day of Cinecolor. What interested me a little regarding Fernando was also that, how he ended up taking care of so much when it came to preserving the material that was thrown away at that time. It seems to me like he was on some kind of rescue mission, almost alone, and it was crazy.
—There is also something that implies making clear the proof of Peña’s work and what it represents.
—Fernando’s work ethic is something that you think you know, but when you enter the house and see the magnitude of this material and with the energy and discipline that goes through it in all its facets (I mean taking care of it, finding it in a place, catalog it, even see it, think it, write it, program it). All of that implies a work ethic that is second to none. I don’t know anyone who can produce that much. So consistently. On top of that, with material that is very difficult, that is, the labor involved in simply presenting a film is a lot: from transferring the material to assembly to project it. Above all, I confirmed it, but I don’t know if it’s something that I discovered and I confirmed it. that these actions allow to dimension it a little better. Everything it does allows the life of the film to be longer. The projection ends, everyone leaves and Fernando is left rewinding the film, you saw to save. There is a lot in that act.
—In that sense, what do you feel represents what Peña does and what he says regarding the conservation and protection of cinema in Argentina?
—It is a model of work and love. Sometimes, let’s say the institutions, they don’t get to have either, at least in this way, with this methodology. Peña is someone who does not care more than that, that his work. He was very consistent with what he did, and with everything. He looks a lot like a preserver to me. But for me he is also a programmer, someone who promotes cinema. I have been watching Peña’s films for 30 years, I see everything he shows on the television program and I see all the places where he was programming. I see a whole system where before he was one more and today he is the only one left. There is nothing else today. The only thing left is just Fernando. I mean, I understand there are others, Lugones and more, but in quantity and variety it seems to me that everything is quite behind what Fernando produces alone, with his medium headstrong mode (did you see it is a person once morest institutions?).
—Do you feel there is a crisis in what can be seen in the cinema?
—Every week and in all places, there is nothing to see. There is very little in Buenos Aires and it was a city that was a movie buff’s paradise, with many interesting screens. I did not want to do a biography of Fernando. I knew that didn’t interest me. It also didn’t want to be a crybaby movie. I think the film is not a weeping film, but it does show the passage of time, the changes in formats, something that is quite raw and devastating. The movie doesn’t get honeyed, in those things. Another limit was also not to deify Fernando: to keep a distance, let’s say, not to make a geography of Fernando, but to make a fair, balanced portrait, with the possibility of moving closer and further away simultaneously, of maintaining a certain distance. And then there were the other limits, the ones he set, to where he lets you in.
—How would you define your gaze as an author?
—You want to be next to where things happen that are fascinating to you and that you don’t quite understand. You seek to give them direction. In this case, I wanted to tell in the film regarding the experience of going to the movies, which is something that I love, that I care regarding, that I would like to continue to live. that it continues to exist So, the idea was to take viewers to that place a bit to appreciate it.
The times of looking
—How was the work process in terms of time, filming?
—I started very cautiously at first, very little by little: I filmed a lot in, I think, 2015-2016 and in those two years we filmed the bulk of the film. Quite a large part of it was filmed there, later it was difficult for me to follow the thread in the film, besides, I did it mostly alone, that is, I produced it and many times I went and filmed and made sound by myself. Sometimes some friends accompanied me, always different, so I didn’t have an armed structure and that’s how I left it, but in those years I did pick up a few things. Until I took hold of it last year and closed it once and for all, that is, we almost lacked nothing, I did some very small things and I finished it, but well, that happens because in between I had to work to live and I didn’t have the space to make the film.
—How difficult is it to make a documentary in Argentina when you film what you want?
—For me the most difficult thing for me was to be able to live from that. That’s like the first hurdle, it’s all you have to do in between to live. and you have to postpone I would like to change that from working only the truth, it is a bit exhausting and you need help. I always ended up doing it this way, but it was unintentional and I would like to change it. It’s always difficult to see yourself in the mirror, I think I learned to generate a certain distance from things. Many times they say that this film is observational and several times the term was used and I feel that they are terms that are becoming fashionable, I think they refer to that distance that I am talking regarding. Here there is a certain narrative will with materials, of course not a classical will.
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