Havana 2003

Kamchatka directed by Marcelo Piñeyro

A Trip To Kamchatka
by Mercedes Santos Moray

At the 25th edition of the International Festival of the New Latin-American cinema Suite Habana (the Fipresci Prize) was the most important film for the Cuban culture; the presence of Brasil was compact and strong; but the Argentinean cinema has presented the moments of deeper emotion.

Marcelo Piñeyro’s Kamchatka shows us the charismatic figure of the big Argentinean actress Cecilia Roth. Critics and audience are once again put face to face to the military dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1982).

But this is not the same discourse of the 80s or the 90s. In 2003 the director gives us a suggestive image of the tragic, historical events.

The painful memory is represented in an intimate way. Piñeyro works both with the feelings and the reason. His film is a metaphor about the dimensions of freedom. The people still suffer but the danger has disappeared. There are only the phantoms of the past... A family in the film escape the repressions for a moment, but at last their lives are affected by the violent events.

Piñeyro manages with perfection all the expressive elements of the film language: the actors, the music, the excellent photography and the script are organically integrated in Kamchatka, the most original and artistic film about the Argentinean reality. I would like to conclude with a verse from the Argentinean National Hymn: “For the great Argentinean people, good luck!”

Mercedes Santos Moray
© FIPRESCI 2003

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