Buenos Aires Experience Blog

BUENOS AIRES GREEN FILM FESTIVAL

25 to 31 August 2011

This is the second edition of the GREEN FILM FESTIVAL Buenos Aires. Argentina has quite a big movie industry and a long tradition in this field. In its golden heydays of the 50s the Argentinean film industry competed with Italy and France. This year Argentina won the Oscar for best foreign film for the second time with “El Secreto de Sus Ojos” (the secret of her eyes). The other Oscar was for the 1984 film “La Historia Oficial”. Here you can study in Film at University for free! One of the places in the world where Woody Allen best sells movie tickets is Argentina, we have a black and ‘rather drying’ sense of humour. It is also home to one of the best international independent film festivals. We love to go to the cinema. It is a pity that so many of the big movie houses have been turned into evangelical temples,shops,discos and even a bookstore (Ateneo in Santa Fe and Callao)that used to be The Grand Splendid, at least this beautiful building still homes art and culture and is a must see, It reminds me of Fnac in Paris or Barnes’s and Noble in NYC.If you want to check out local films you can head for the Gaumont Cinema,an old theater in front of the National Congress Building where they only feature local productions.

Unfortunately I cannot say that my fellow countrymen are very green. They do not separate their trash, they do not recycle, they throw trash in parks and beaches, buses exhaust black fumes.Cows, believe or not are one of the biggest factors of air polutution and we have plenty of them. I remember when in the early 80s people still burned the trash. Every building had an incinerator and every floor had an opening where you could throw the rubbish down a shaft to the flames. I loved throwing out the trash as a kid and hearing the load drop down 9 floors. The entire city was full of smoke and soot. Buildings looked like steamboats with their smoky chimneys and the city seemed like a picture out of the industrial revolution. Things are changing, like the bike lanes and free bicycles but still nobody carpools, there is not even a word for it in our language.

The Green film festival aims to generate environmental consciousness through the seventh art. This edition brings together some of the best 12 current “green films”. Some of the films being exhibited are: Eco-Pirate, Wasteland, The Cove, Jane´s Journey, and 2012 Time for Change, Think Global and Future of Hope. This edition is sponsored by the British Embassy and it tries to show the other side of the fight against global warming. Teresa Constantini presents the documentary Are We Waking Up on Time, about London’s effort to host the greenest Olympics ever. This year´s local film is Huellas en el Agua (prints in the water) of director Boy Olmi.

All the films are exhibited in the Cinemark of Palermo (Beruti 3399) Entrances cost 22 peosos.You can find more info at: www.cinemark.com.ar.

Enjoy your feature presentation!!

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