Danube

A cinematographic poetry that portrays the artistic link between the French filmmaker André S. Labarthe and his disciple, the Uruguayan filmmaker Gabriela Guillermo. The letters that were written over the years testify, not only to the mutual affection and admiration, but also their will to one day make a movie together. After trouble in the production due to the teacher's delicate health and his subsequent death, we witness in the winter landscapes the creative complicity between both filmmakers.

A group of Slavic immigrants is chased in Mar del Plata by the Buenos Aires Police’s intelligence services during the International Film Festival. The city hides the memory of the cultural vigilance that took place during the sixties. The archives, secret and confidential, are read by unrehearsed guardians of their declassification.

Over the course of 10 months, a camera travels to Buenos Aires, Argentina and Hanover, Germany to meet with Magalí, María Belén, Ivana and Carla, the founding members of the Archivo De La Memoria Trans Argentina, the first existing Trans Archive in the world. Taking the shape of a photo-novel, the documentary not only recounts the founding members lives as trans women under the Argentine dictatorship (1976-1983), the AIDS epidemy, state repression and mass assassinations but also years of fighting for their rights, sorority and the exaltation of life and laughter in times of death. Filming each one of them is filming them embracing their new role as curators, archivists and historians while a collection of 7,000 photos goes through the filter of their memories.

The year 2023 marks the 35th anniversary of the association La Mujer y el Cine, and 43 female directors have come together to deliver a fragment of their gaze, a frame, an aesthetic and ethical decision, a tribute to women who anticipated the struggle. A leap into the void made by women filmmakers of different ages and backgrounds. United, in a sort of electronic loom, as an offering and a legacy in which a moment in the history of Argentine cinema is told, where we were all one, with our eyes on the past, our gaze on the present and the horizon full of the future.