![TWO BY EL PAMPERO CINE](http://www.spectacletheater.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/el-pampero_series-banner.jpg")
For the past 20 years El Pampero Cine has been redefining what it means to be an independent filmmaker in a transnational system of production and distribution. Refusing outside funding and working solely with their own equipment, they have created an aesthetic and intellectual sensibility that feels distinctly their own. With the recent release of Laura Citarella’s TRENQUE LAUQUEN, following on the heels of 2018’s LA FLOR, they have cemented themselves as one of the most original voices of contemporary cinema.
To mark this occasion we’re proud to present two other recent films by El Pampero Cine that match that achievement, but have not received the same attention. Both made during covid lockdown and using their closed-quarters arrangements as a jumping off point for all sorts of wild fantasy and mystery, Alejo Moguillansky’s LA EDAD MEDIA and Agustín Mendilaharzu’s CLEMENTINA are two works that show the range and depth of what El Pampero can do with the most limited of means.
THE MIDDLE AGES
(LA EDAD MEDIA)
dir. Alejo Moguillansky & Luciana Acuña, 2022
89 min. Argentina.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
SATURDAY, MAY 6 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, MAY 16 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, MAY 21 – 5 PM
WEDNESDAY, MAY 31 – 7:30 PM
“In this comedy of economics and isolation, partners Moguillansky and Acuña play themselves—a director and choreographer—stuck in their flat during a pandemic lockdown in Argentina. They contend not just with a sense of self upon losing opportunities to do their work— to create their art— but upon losing their finances, too. While Moguillansky awkwardly tries to direct Beckett via Zoom and Acuña takes and gives split-screen classes to little success, the couple’s daughter, Cleo, begins secretly selling her parents belongings out their front door to fund a much-desired telescope. In this funny and clever snapshot of fiction that feels 99% based in reality, Moguillansky and Acuña, who share directing credits, find in their household microcosm the humorous absurdity but also underlying shadows of the financial and existential crises […] incubating in so many homes, communities, and nations. ”
“A comedy in times of shelter-in-place? Probably so. A portrait of a girl and her family in times of shelter-in-place? Apparently so. An absurd Beckettian musical shot in times of shelter-in place? Exactly so.”
CLEMENTINA
dir. Agustín Mendilaharzu & Costanza Feldman, 2023
109 min. Argentina.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 3 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, MAY 16 – 7:30 PM with Q&A (This event is $10)
SUNDAY, MAY 21 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, MAY 26 – 10 PM
“In 2020, in an apartment in Buenos Aires, a dancer-actress and a cameraman-playwright look for a way to occupy their days of confinement. They have a camera and they start filming. At first they are documentary images. Then her face and her body appear and Fiction, timidly, begins to appear. They work with what reality provides and then transmute it. They believe they are making a short film, then another, and then plenty others. The game grows and completely takes over their lives. With infinite innocence first, with infinite responsibility later, they begin to understand that they are making a film. This film.”
“The sudden cleaning of an extremely cluttered domestic space; the habits of an idiosyncratic couple living between home-made meals and online classes; the slow devastation of an apartment as every basic service seems to crack up; the exterior world asking for favours or coming to the rescue. These are some of the elements that constitute Clementina, scripted, performed and directed – in a superb tour de force – by Constanza Feldman and Agustín Mendilaharzu.
This offbeat comedy builds a narrative of stagnation and isolation, punctuated by sudden detours and surprising turning points. The intervention of secondary characters brings infectious warmth, fun and disequilibrium. The film resonates with echoes of Chantal Akerman, Raúl Ruiz, the Zürcher brothers and Mariano Llinás: the absurdism of quotidian situations; the performances that mix slapstick, dance and pantomime; the emotional undercurrents that slowly come to the surface; the repetitive patterns broken by imaginative flights; and its impeccable, gracious timing.
Shot with refreshing formal inventiveness, paying special attention to the humorous qualities of sound, Clementina is a delightful cinematic experience about the lives of two eccentrics – not to mention their improbable collection of handmade objects, toys, books, souvenirs, records and leaves – during pandemic times.”