The 73rd edition of the Berlin Film Festival starts today, Thursday, February 16, with different Latin American films—from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Uruguay, and Latino USA—screening in many of the festivals’ sections.
The only Latin American film in the official competition is the Mexican film Totem, the second feature by director Lila Avilés after her acclaimed directorial debut The Chambermaid. The film tells the story of seven-year-old Sol, who spends the day at her grandfather’s home, helping with the preparations for a surprise party for her father. Throughout the day, chaos slowly takes over, fracturing the family’s foundations. Sol will embrace the essence of letting go as a release for existence.
Two Latin American films will compete in the Encounters section of the festival, dedicated to foster aesthetically and structurally daring works from independent, innovative filmmakers: the Mexican documentary The Echo / El eco by Tatiana Huezo (Prayers for the Stolen), and the Argentine film The Klezmer Project / Adentro estoy bailando by Leandro Koch and Paloma Schachmann.
Huezo’s The Echo, is set in the remote Mexican village of El Eco, where life is rich in privation, work and children. Here, granddaughters movingly take care of grandmothers until they die. A delicately woven film that celebrates the grace of animals and children alike.
In The Klezmer Project, a frustrated Jewish wedding cameraman falls in love with a klezmer clarinettist. To spend time with her, he fabricates a documentary project that takes him on a journey in search of the lost klezmer melodies safeguarded by the Romani of Eastern Europe.
Three Latin American films will screen in the Panorama section of the festival: the Argentine film The Castle / El castillo by Martín Benchimol, the Mexican film Heroic / Heroico by David Zonana, and the Brazilian film Property / Propiedade by Daniel Bandeira.
The Castle is a dark fairly tale where the inheritance from her former boss is a poisoned chalice for Indigenous housekeeper Justina: a huge, derelict mansion in the back of beyond. Justina’s daughter Alexia would much prefer to return to Buenos Aires and work as a car mechanic.
Heroic follows Luis, 18, who sees only one way to be able to provide for himself and his mother: training at Mexico’s national military academy. The rigid system of violence designed to turn him into the perfect soldier pushes him to his limits. In Property—a thriller about the extreme disparities between social classes in Brazil—when rebelling workers occupy Teresa’s family estate, she flees at the last minute into an armoured car. She is trapped, but refuses to negotiate.
The Chilean film The Eternal Memory / La memoria infinita by Oscar-nominated director Maite Alberdi (The Mole Agent) and the Colombian-French co-production Transfariana by Joris Lachaise will screen in the Panorama Documentary section of the Berlinale. In The Eternal Memory, when Chilean journalist Augusto Góngora is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, his wife begins to document his advancing disease on video. The documentary hints at the tragedy and sadness that his slide into oblivion brings for them both.
Transfariana is an unexpected love story between a trans former sex worker and a FARC rebel begins in a Colombian prison and leads to an alliance in solidarity between trans activists and FARC militants who have laid down their arms.
The Forum section of the Berlinale, will host the world premiere of five Latin American films: the Argentine films About Thirty / Arturo a los 30 by Martín Shanly, The Trial / El juicio by Ulises de la Órden, The Face of the Jellyfish / El rostro de la medusa by Melisa Liebenthal; the Brazilian movie The Intrusion / O estranho by Flora Dias and Juruna Mallon; and the Cuban documentary Calls from Moscow / Llamadas desde Moscú by Luis Alejandro Yero.
Shanly’s comedy of errors About Thirty revolves around a hapless 30-year-old named Arturo, and his penchant for indiscretions that is as impossible to overlook as the finesse with which the film glides from March 2020 to the preceding decade and back again. In the documentary film The Trial, two years after the end of the military dictatorship in Argentina in the mid-eighties, leading members of the junta are tried in court. Director de la Orden creates 18 succinctly edited chapters from 530 hours of footage, bearing witness to state terror.
The Face of the Jellyfish, a gentle comedy that poses serious questions about the human face, tells the story of Marina who, one day, no longer recognizes herself. Is she ill, a different person, prettier? Those around her take it in their stride, her doctor is puzzled, the authorities block her ID card. In a blend of realistic and stylized scenes, The Intrusion follows a member of the ground staff as she seeks her roots beneath the runway of Brazil’s biggest airport, Guarulhos, which was built on Indigenous territory as its name suggests.
Yero’s debut feature Calls from Moscow is structured around moving telephone calls back home from four young people from Cuba, who are stranded in a prefabricated estate in Moscow as a transitory stop, until Russia’s attack on Ukraine radically shifts their outlook.
The 1973 camp thriller film The Devil Queen / A Rainha Diaba by Antonio Carlos da Fontoura will screened as part of Forum Special, in which Brazil's Black acting icon Milton Gonçalves plays the queen of Rio de Janeiro's drug dealers in this film that challenges the oppressive climate of the military dictatorship with plenty of feathers and lots of blood.
Forum Expanded will premiere The Tree / A Árvore, the latest work by by Brazilian artist and filmmaker Ana Vaz, the meditation film in 30-second sequences about the artist’s father that links geographies, times, the living and the dead with a metal sword—the montage. Also from Brazil, The Beads / As miçangas by Rafaela Camelo, will screen in the Berlinale Shorts competition. The short film follows two young who women retreat to a remote holiday home. While one of them undergoes a medical abortion, the other quietly cares for her. A snake slithers around them, unnoticed.
The Argentine film I Woke Up With a Dream / Desperté con un sueño by Pablo Solarz will have its world premiere in the Generation Kplus section of the Berlinale. The film is the story of Felipe, who loves to act. But his mother is not supposed to find out about his attachment to theatre. At an audition, he becomes more and more entangled in mysteries. Yet, he’s not the only one in his family who resorts to lies to achieve his dream.
Six Latin American films will premiere in the Generation 14plus competition: the Mexican film Adolfo by Sofía Auza, the Argentine film Almamula by Juan Sebastian Torales, the Uruguayan short Before Madrid / Antes de Madrid by Ilén Juambeltz and Nicolás Botana, the Dominican feature Ramona by Victoria Linares Villegas, the Brazilian short Infantaria by Laís Santos Araújo, and the U.S. Latinx feature documentary Hummingbirds by Silvia del Carmen Castaños and Estefanía “Beba” Contreras.
In Adolfo, when Momo, Hugo and his cactus, Adolfo, meet one night, they are heading in opposite directions. Their peculiar encounter will not only magically change the course of their lives, but also encourage them to warmly embrace the beauty of the unexpected. Almamula tells the story of Nino, who fleeing homophobic attacks, moves to a rural house amidst a forest haunted by Almamula, a monster that takes those who commit carnal sins. In a world of whispers, unspoken desires and prayers, Nino’s curiosity and impulses rise to the surface.
In Before Madrid, Micaela and Santiago have their last chance to have sex for the first time. Early the following morning, she is moving to Madrid and he is staying behind in Uruguay. They have it all planned out: a secluded spot, condoms—and getting a few tips from a friend, just in case.
Ramona, tells the story of actor Camila who, feeling unprepared for her role as a pregnant teenager from the outskirts of Santo Domingo, decides to sit down with pregnant young girls for inspiration. Yet the film unexpectedly moves into unchartered territory when the teens take centre stage. Set in opulent, lush scenery, a birthday party is being held in Infantaria. Joana longs for her period to start, her brother Dudu misses his absent father, Verbena looks for a way out. Fulfilling your dreams can come true.
Set in Texas, on the Mexican border, Hummingbirds follows best friends Silvia and Beba, who dance through long summer nights. Stuck in the immigration process in a politically divided America, home seems fragile. But their bond is not. The half-light is a space for poetry and dreams.
The 73rd edition of the Berlin Film Festival takes place February 16—26 in Germany.
