Throughout the twentieth century, Argentine cinema reflected the waves that afflicted the socio-political landscape with periods like the Golden Age era and New Cinema that paralleled government upheaval, oscillating between increased liberalism and heavy censorship. The 1970s had scarred the nation, a period referred to as “la guerra sucia” (the dirty war) where political violence dominated the scene and terrorised the population. 1983 marked one of the greatest shifts in the modern era for Argentina, bringing democracy to the country and a liberation in cinema after a dictatorship that had lasted from 1976 to 1983. For an industry that had dealt with countless restrictions, the 1990s became a watershed moment, setting the foundations for New Argentine Cinema.
Through such fluctuations, the period that preceded New Argentina Cinema saw great limitation in film production with numbers falling below those in the dictatorship years. The film industry in the mid-90s was in serious jeopardy. In 1994, only five films were released but less than a decade later, numbers had grown close to seventy in a year. This drastic shift was largely facilitated by the National Film Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts (Instituto Nacional de Cine y Artes Audiovisuales, INCAAA) in Argentina, an agency of the government, which initiated a small grants programme in the 1990s. The New Cinema Law of 1994 had generated a source of funding for INCAA, by introducing screening quotas for domestic films and taxes on cinema tickets and video rentals. The sponsorship of Historias Breves, a competition for short-films, encouraged filmmakers even more so in 1995. Around the same time, the Universidad del Cine was established, finally creating a space and framework for aspiring filmmakers to thrive. This sparked a rise in independent filmmaking.
A new cohort of filmmakers were able to produce cinematography that ultimately informed an era of Argentine cinema. Where the decade prior had been dominated by representations of the impact of the government’s militant tactics, New Argentine Cinema examined a broader range of themes that affected the population. When compared to similar movements on the continent, such as cinema novo in Brazil, the filmography produced during this period was much less unified or confined to an overarching characteristic. With such a diverse landscape, numerous themes became the centre of focus for Argentine filmmakers, depicting everything from the indigenous communities to socio-political subject matter.
Pizza, birra, faso (dir. Caetano and Stagnaro, 1998) acts as a signpost, as one of the first of the New Argentine Cinema movement. Pizza, birra, faso (Pizza, Beer and Cigarettes) depicts the city of Buenos Aires in a neo-realist, documentary style that follows a group of young misfits who squat in the same house and commit criminal acts in order to survive. The teenagers steal indiscriminately from both the rich and underprivileged, while some dream of getting jobs and perhaps moving away; Sandra (Pamela Jordan), the pregnant girlfriend of Córdoba (Hector Anglada), dreams of going to Uruguay and starting a new, more prosperous life.
Caetano and Stagnaro make a marginalised group the centre of the narrative, highlighting an unacknowledged sector of society. This group may be criminals but they also exist with a construct that depends on exploitation, revealing how society grapples with power dynamics – particularly in light of the post-dictatorship shift. Shot with a fixed camera, much of the film draws attention to the surrounding environment, including how this group interacts with other members of society. To add to this, the cinematography simulates a peripheral vision of the group, who themselves exist on the periphery of society. The impoverished city is a notable feature of the film itself, utilising landmarks like the Obelisco to indicate the location in a time of increased unemployment and de-industrialisation. By combining these elements, Caetano and Stagnaro produce a harsh but realistic reflection of contemporary society.
The directorial duo, Caetano and Stagnaro, originally met at a short film festival organised by INCAA, whereupon they began working together. The script for the film was written within three weeks and intended to be submitted for a television contest. For this reason, the film was budgeted as a TV movie and was shot on 16mm. INCAA eventually funded them to blow the footage up to 35mm, making an investment of approximately $70,000. At the time, Stagnaro was studying at the Universidad del Cine but Caetano had no formal training. The very fact that the pair were able to make this film proves what makes New Argentine Cinema so special; the support in funding from such an institution increased accessibility to filmmaking to unprecedented heights.
Consciously making the decision to move away from focusing on the dictatorship, Caetano and Stagnaro instead sought out the quotidian experiences of the Argentine population. This choice was reflected in their stylistic choices, and formulate a key feature of the New Argentine Cinema movement, a neo-realist style that has been linked to the period of crisis and often compared to Italy’s neorealist movement which developed after the Second World War.
With the socio-economic crisis of 1998 to 2002, films like La ciénaga (dir. Lucrecia Martel, 2001) focused on social class, particularly a sector that had for the most part been forgotten – the middle class. La ciénaga (The Swamp) follows a middle-aged woman, Mecha (Graciela Borges), and her family who live in the high plains of north-west Argentina on a deteriorating country estate called La Mandrágora (The Mandrake). The film contains many threads of several stories, depicting themes of class relations, race and gender, to name just a few. Again, moving away from the political context of the military dictatorship, Martel’s film puts forward a realistic portrayal of society and the middle class with a personal story that has been attributed to encompassing the attitude of New Argentine Cinema. The filmography is disorienting, uncomfortable and claustrophobic – just like the humid and boggy setting.
Another significant change for Argentine cinema was its development from a domestic to international market. The films that define the New Argentine Cinema wave started to receive international acclaim, likely in part due to the change in focus to universal themes. XXY (dir. Lucía Puenzo, 2007) represented a remarkable moment not only in Argentine cinema, but global. The film recounts the experience of an intersex teenager who struggles to define their gender identity among a society that is ignorant to these issues. XXY demonstrates the growth of Argentine cinema, a decade after Pizza, birra, faso. Puenzo, who also attended the ENERC, the film school of INCAA, represents a generation of filmmakers who espoused the drastic changes of the period. The production value may differ drastically, but the themes continue to reflect a consideration of marginalised members of society.
New Argentine Cinema represents a wave of filmmakers who personify the heightened accessibility of the medium, permitting a societal shift where new perspective and voices of underrepresented groups made it to the silver screen. While it’s popularity reached the international scale, the domestic reception could never reach comparable levels. Nonetheless, this movement in Argentine cine revived the country’s film industry and subsequently sparked an undeniable shift in the way the medium was perceived.
