21st August, 2008
Convinced that a festival remains the perfect space for thinking about cinema, the 6th DLA Film Festival team has again this year devoted careful attention to the selection of films for the documentary section.
Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Cuba and Mexico raise their voices and their cameras to make their presence felt through a variety of stories that, through different treatments of the nature of audiovisual forms, give space to a wide range of non-fiction narratives.
From Brazil, João Salles’ award-winning film Santiago (2006) (winner of Best Documentary award in various festivals in 2007) is a reflection on the very act of making a documentary film. The equally lauded The sugar curtain (Telón de azúcar), by Camila Guzmán Urzúa (Cuba/France, 2006), narrates the story of the Cuban revolution and dream, through the eyes of the generation who were born and brought up within it. The innovative Brazilian documentary film Fabricating Tom Zé (Fabricando Tom Zé), by Décio Matos, Jr. (2006), shows us the personal world of the Tropicalist musician and phenomenon, Tom Zé. Co-presented with the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, City of factories (Maquilapolis), (Mexico/USA, 2006), is a collaborative work between the directors, Vicky Funari and Sergio De La Torre, and the women workers in Tijuana’s multinationally owned assembly factories. From Argentina and the UK, the award-winning We are the indians (Mbya, tierra en rojo), by Philip Cox and Valeria Mapelman (Argentina/England, 2004), reveals the resilience, humour and extraordinary stories of the Guarani indians. And finally, from Marta Rodríguez and Fernando Restrepo in Colombia, comes Soraya; love is not forgiveness (Soraya; amor no es olvido) (2006) and the story of the resistance and struggle of the displaced black communities.
The cinematographic spirit of the documentary film questions our world, and enlarges our perception of reality through its point of view. In the DLA Film Festival we believe that the art of the documentary comes from the exploration of a story and its cinematographic form, and that these elements permit us to know ourselves through the gaze of others.
Neal Baker & Sandra Tabares
Directors for Documentary and Short Films