A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings

The journey of Fernando Birri, the great father of New Latin American Cinema, has left a mark that begins at the legendary Santa Fe Documentary School and continues to this day. His methods, influences, his founding role, his poetic-political commitment, and his artistic output are some of the milestones that make up his journey.

Jorge Giannoni isn't a hero; he's a witness to the darkest part of the history of independent cinema in our country, and of an entire generation; a story that saw him present alongside Raymundo Gleyzer and Glauber Rocha in the turbulent Brazil of the 1960s, during the French May as a producer for RAI, in his work as a face-hunter for Fellini, and in film production from Cuba, making documentaries critical of the Trial; a history riddled with encounters, disagreements, exiles, frustrations, burned negatives, and a few triumphs.

This documentary deconstructs the life of my father, Carlos Ragone, based on his work as a photographer and photojournalist: father and daughter, photographs and audiovisuals, memory and imagination intertwine.

“My life was the same as that of thousands of gringos: I plowed and sowed the land, and went to the bar on Sunday.” Such is the refrain throughout LA PAMPA GRINGA, which endeavors to relate the sense of community built by the European settlers who in 1865 first colonized the town of Esperanza, located in Birri’s native province of Santa Fe. Largely consisting of juxtaposed daguerreotypes from the period and newspaper printings, LA PAMPA GRINGA exhibits Birri’s ability to weave narratives out of historical documentation in deft, admirable form.

Tells the story of a poor family, inhabitants of the southern province of Santa Fe, who is forced to move into an abandoned railroad until waters recede Salado river wagon.

Everyday the children of the neighborhood known as "Tire Dié", in the city of Santa Fe, wait for the train to ask for money, shouting "Tire dié!" (toss me a dime!) to the passengers. Considered the first survey-on-film in Latin America.

A mockumentary about three young student filmmakers as they make a movie about an alleged film director living obscurely in a Buenos Aires mental hospital. In their visits to the mental hospital, the three students will forge a very special relationship with the self-styled former film director as they follow different clues and strategies to discover his 'true' identity.

This documentary is a portrait made in Mexico by a group of Argentine exiles, directed by the painter Nicolás Amoroso.

A group of rich young intellectuals hiding from the war in rural Italy play at being partisans when some disbanded soldiers and some refugees ask them for shelter in their villa. The young and aristocratic Andrea strikes up a friendship with a peasant girl, Lucia. Then the Germans suddenly appear, looking for the real partisans, and the time comes for serious decisions.

In 1956, the humorous designer Oski made a work about the foundation of the city of Buenos Aires. Fernando Birri made a film from this work in 1959, using the original text of the German explorer Ulrich Schmidel. This film, which disappeared in the years of the dictatorship, was miraculously restored on video in 2000. The story that the documentary describes can be compared with the situation of Latin American cinema throughout all these years.

The Cheerful Squadron is a 1954 Italian war-comedy film directed by Paolo Moffa and Interpreted by movie stars like Paolo Stoppa, Vittorio De Sica, Alberto Sordi and Silvana Pampanini. Based on the military environment novel The Allegro Squadron by Georges Courteline (1886), this film presents a series of sketches on military life in the late nineteenth century.

Documentary that celebrates 100 years of cinema in Latin America and talks about the origins and the development of cinema in this subcontinent. Its structure is based in 12 short films directed by various Latin American directors. These are: 1) "Los inicios", Iván Trujillo 2) "Cuando comenzamos a hablar", María Novaro 3) "Jugando en serio", Jacobo Morales 4) "De cuerpo presente [Las espirales perpetuas del placer y el poder] Cine Mexicano [1931- 1997]", Marcela Fernández Violante 5) "Cuando quisimos ser adultos", Edmundo Aray and David Rodríguez 6) "Cinema Novo", Orlando Senna 7) "Memorias de una isla, Juan Carlos Tabío 8) "Un grito, 24 cuadros por segundo", Julio García-Espinosa 9) "El día de la independencia", Federico García 10) "¿Sólo las formas permanecen?", Fernando Birri and Pablo Rodríguez Gauregui 11) "Todo final es un principio", Andrés Marriquín.

In 1997 the Argentine filmmaker Fernando Birri returned to his home country to film a documentary on the 30th anniversary of the death of Che Guevara and the relevance of utopias at that time. Carmen Guarini decided to record those moments. A rough edit of this film was hidden away on a fragile VHS tape for twenty years. Today, these images come to life and shed some light on the life of this Latin American poet and master filmmaker, who, at the age of 92, still refused to give up on his own utopias.

What goes through someone's mind 13 seconds before they die? A town lost in the year 40. Different characters in their common actions. Two men lying in the street, one dead, the other playing dead. Between reality and the delusions of his mind we travel through his last thirteen seconds of life.