A barren scrub area in Chaco province, El Impenetrable, also made its big-screen debut in A Place Called Los Pereyra, director Andrés Livov-Macklin’s first feature-length film. This documentary doesn’t simply focus on the day-to-day amenities Los Pereyra’s residents are used to dealing without (namely electricity, running water and telephones), but encourages viewers to consider the way they undertake charity work.

Although A Place… hasn’t made it to the lofty heights of competition level at BAFICI, no matter, the fact it is screening is a feat in itself. Five years after first visiting Los Pereyra, a remote hamlet some 50km by dirt track from nearest town Miraflores (phoneboxes: one), Livov-Macklin’s 81-minute documentary opened in Argentina four days ago, four years after he filmed with a three-strong crew: a camera operator, a sound recordist and an assistant director.

The Buenos-Aires born filmmaker, who lives in Montreal, had heard about a fund-raising project organised by Northlands, a private school in the northern suburbs of Buenos Aires. Teenage “godmothers” would head to Los Pereyra for a week, taking donations such as food, pens and footballs to the tiny primary school, also offering their friendship and their own brand of solutions to the impoverished community — and so Livov-Macklin became a wall fly to the group of girls and their teachers.

He says: “It has taken a very long time mainly to be shown here because we had little funding. It’s hard to raise money although we received money from the Jan Vrijman Fund, and the National Film Board of Canada also chipped in. We only had US$30,000 and a film of this calibre really needed US$200,000 to make it. It was a constant battle.”

Not only did a lack of finances present a continual battle for the director and his Canadian producer, Hugh Gibson, but El Impenetrable really does what it says on the tin: it’s a difficult environment in which to live and work, to simply exist.

“This charity project has very much been at the will of the teachers, who have now retired,” says Livov-Macklin, who stayed on five separate occasions in Los Pereyra. “But there’s no water, no toilets — you have to do your business in the bushes — there’s no electricity, and a lot of bugs, snakes and scorpions. And there’s no security whatsoever. You could be attacked by a wild animal. The kids were playing football and my cameraman was standing on a rock for 20 minutes. It turned out there was a snake underneath which the kids then stoned to death — but it could have been my cameraman who ended up dying from a snake bite.”

From a similar educational background to the “godmothers” (Livov-Macklin went to St. Andrew’s School), he says the driving force behind the documentary is a question directed towards himself.

“It’s self-reflection because in high school we had a godparent scheme which is very common in Argentina. Community centres, schools and churches get together and sponsor a school. My friends went on these field trips, and I always used to wonder what people thought of us. My frien went for a week and then came back. What do they think: was it like a UFO landing for them? It’s a bit like that, I think. And that was the driving question.

“The godmothers are idolised and these godmothers in a way are me, and so are most audience members — people from the city — and the film answers the question of what would happen if I went to stay in the jungle for a week. My main concern was what goes on with the villagers, not with the godmothers who are similar to me or you. So we shot before, during and after the godmothers had gone.”

Going back to 2005, he describes his own UFO-like landing in Los Pereyra. “The first time I went was a year before the godmothers to see what was going on. The villagers immediately knew I wasn’t from there as my face was as red as a tomato. It’s very hot, deserted, with dense vegetation and temperatures often reaching 45 degrees. But I didn’t have much contact with them over the couple of days I was there. I returned a few months later by myself just to observe for two weeks and I slept in the school library on the floor.

“I had my picture camera with me and sat in classes. I’m sure the kids were wondering who I was and what that thing — the camera — was with me.” Did they question you? “No, they were very quiet — I think they were shy.”

Livov-Macklin visited the community three more times, during which the parents made their voices heard. “They were very concerned about how I would portray them. Every now and then when they go to Miraflores and are able to watch TV, they see that poor people are demeaned on screen. Most TV stations are from Buenos Aires and the media can be particularly nasty towards that kind of people.

“I heard ‘we don’t want to be seen as monkeys’ an awful lot.”

In order to gain their trust and help them understand what he was doing, the filmmaker used some of Robert J. Flaherty’s methods (director of the first commercially successful feature-length documentary).

“I would put the camera somewhere and explain what we wanted and if we wanted them to talk about something in particular. After shooting, we’d all sit around a monitor and watch it so they would understand that what we had just shot was exactly what they had said. And they approved. A lack of knowledge can produce fear. If people don’t know what’s going on, then they are scared so we broke that barrier — then they were very generous about letting us film whatever we wanted.”

This fly-on-the-wall film wasn’t scripted, insists Livov-Macklin. “All we knew is that the godmothers would come, then they would leave and that something would happen. We just didn’t know what.”

A Place Called Los Pereyra. Directed and produced by: Andrés Livov-Macklin. Also produced by Hugh Gibson. Argentina/Canada, 2009. Distributed by Chapeau! Films.

From the Herald

But until now, a word has never been publically uttered about Escobar by the people closest to him: his family. Following his 1993 death after a prolonged effort from the Colombian military, US special forces and death squad Los Pepes, Victoria Henao Vallejos, Juan Pablo Escobar and Manuela Escobar, respectively the drug baron’s wife, son and daughter, fled the country.

To cut to the end, the family moved to Mozambique but ended up in Argentina. And 16 years on, after countless proposals, Escobar’s son has finally agreed to share his memories in Pecados de mi padre (Sins of My Father), a documentary by Argentine director Nicolás Entel, in the hope of ending the violence in Colombia.

Preferring to be interviewed in Spanish as “we are talking about very delicate subject matter and I might not be able to communicate the correct message if I don’t do it in my language,” Sebastián Marroquín, as Juan Pablo is now known, is polite, calm and maintains eye contact throughout.

RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW. Saying that “everybody thought it logical I would become ‘Escobar 2.0’,” Sebastián is now an architect, married and based in the Palermo neighbourhood of Buenos Aires. But why has he chosen now to speak out?

“I’ve rejected lots of money-making projects because they glorified the gangster style and image of my father. I never agreed with that idea because it seemed the opposite message to the lifestyle that I’ve chosen to lead. So I’ve always said ‘no’ to those kinds of proposals.

“But Nicolás suggested telling the story from the children’s point of view, not just mine, so as to integrate everybody else’s point of view. And that’s when I thought this story could have an interesting turn.”

By the children, he is referring to Rodrigo Lara Restrepo and the Galán brothers, Juan Manuel, Carlos and Claudio, sons of the murdered politicians who meet Sebastián for the first time in Pecados.

“Nicolás in fact called me a year before and I said ‘no’. I’ve never hidden what has happened to me from anyone, but I realised this would give a vision to other families who have suffered at the hands of violence. But I think everything happens for a reason with specific synchrony.

“So I wanted to tell the story but not more of the same in which they simply tell the story and don’t leave you with a message. I always wanted to find another way of telling it — not so I was putting my father on a pedestal — but so we become aware of it so it doesn’t happen again.

“We were still exposed when we changed our identity and residency and when your secret place is no longer secret, and neither is your name, that let me to realise that there is nothing left to hide. The only thing that remained was to advance and share with the next generation what has happened.”

Sebastián has returned twice to Colombia: once to meet the Galán brothers and second, for the premiere. He left his homeland aged 16 and although he doesn’t sound obviously Colombian, he also has no distinctive Argentine accent either.

“I spent half my life in Colombia as Juan Pablo and the other half here as Sebastián so I feel I’ve learnt from both places and I feel part of both. I miss Colombia. It has changed for the better and has more hope than before, in terms of its security, economy and healthcare. Which is why I miss it even more. But I think I can be more useful for Colombia by being outside of the country. I’d like to return, when I’m older. But it isn’t possible for the moment, and I don’t think it’s prudent, either.”

CHANGES. After such upheaval from a young age, including the adoption of a new identity, surely documenting his current life means his life will change again following the international release of Pecados?

He says simply: “It already has changed. With respect to my names. But there is nothing else to hide which gives us the peace of mind to do a project, to share it. They’ve already discovered who we are here, they’ve investigated us for the past 13 years, and there is nothing more to hide so the only thing to do is move on and share this story.”

But putting himself in the spotlight after all this time still seems contradictory. Why do it? “For several reasons. I’ve learnt a lot of lessons from the worlds of violence and drug trafficking. And I chose not to continue down those paths. Not because I’m afraid or fear the law but because I have an intimate and human conviction that to enter those games is not the right thing to do. That’s what the violence I’ve suffered has taught me. I feel I have a social and moral task to return the message that life has taught me.

“Turn on the TV and you’ll see programmes that allude to the cartels and they show everything through rose-tinted spectacles. Beautiful girls, cars, mansions, money. It’s all wonderful. That’s the height of being a drug dealer. The suffering and death comes after that if you’re successful. So it’s important to me to show the opposite to what everybody thinks, the glamour, and all that.

“Kids enter the game as if nothing has ever happened before and I can see generation after generation clashing, and we’re in the same situation. I want the violence to stop, not just for me but for Colombia.

“There is also the necessity to ask for forgiveness for my father’s actions. They aren’t mine but I have to say to you that society has persecuted and punished us as if we were Pablo Escobar. The film allows a minute’s silence to hear our voices and to say ‘this is our story, this is how we live, please understand that to be someone’s son doesn’t mean they are also an accomplice’.

“The documentary is a way for us to send this message to society that they separate us as individuals and not as cartel members. We are members of the boss’ family, but we aren’t the cartel.”

MOVING ON. Following 16 years as Juan Pablo and another 16 as Sebastián, is this a new stage for him? “I don’t even know who I am!” he laughs. “We don’t know where we’re going! But does anyone really know? I think it’s important to live with both sides of the story, the negative and positive from the first part of my life and apply that experience on a daily basis. I’m going to continue working and making money in the correct way without hurting anyone and this new life gives the opportunity of a profession here in Argentina with this identity. I have to live with this mixture. I’ll never be able to escape from my past, nor from my father, but if I can transform the present and also the future, well…

“I am trying to transform the reality that everybody thought it logical I would be come ‘Escobar 2.0’. Everybody expected that. Even me. But I realised in time, what we could do meant we could invite Colombians to understand that violence must not be generated. ‘Someone killed your dad, so when you’re older you go and kill someone else’s dad.’ The circle never ends.

“What takes places in the documentary is important. The children, we sit down, important characters in Colombia’s life, to end the violence. Let’s take a new path, unexplored, but we talk about a new path in order to inspire others.”

Even though many people expected Sebastián to follow in his father’s footsteps, a moment of choice had to occur for the young man. “I never considered the possibility of abandoning my father. I would not allow that as a son, as it would be an unforgivable disloyalty for me. I wouldn’t be able to sleep today if I didn’t have the clear conscience of having a been a loving and respectful son towards my father, despite everything he did to society. That is the test of family values.

“But I could never have produced that violence. In life I criticised him. But it wasn’t in my hands, aged 14, to tell my father, because the FBI, the CIA, not even all the police in Colombia, nor all of his enemies could stop him. But I used to fight with him about the violence going on in Colombia. However, he was full of excuses for justifying it. That he’d suffered at the hands of violence that justified to him what he was doing. The same circle…”

NEW DAWN. Starting life anew didn’t come without its complications. Having lived briefly in Mozambique, a war-torn country which at that time didn’t have any food on supermarket shelves, according to Sebastián, they headed back to South America. Given a three-month tourist visa by Argentina, the family decided to stay here. “At that point , three months seemed like a lifetime to us,” he says.

But at least they would have had money on their side to help them start afresh? He says: “We came here with what any plane passenger can bring. We were a family of four travelling and brought everything we physically could plus US$40,000. And with that we started a new life.” Although he is now a Palermo-based architect who happened to be investigated for 13 years by the Argentine Supreme Court because of his family connections, Sebastián and his family also make a living from the rights to his father’s image.

Discussing the documentary, how did the relationship work out with Nicolás ? “Well I did say to him, ‘please don’t lie about my father’s story.’ I’m used to that happening. And I wanted it to be dedicated to telling the truth but I didn’t have any control over the editing. Of course, lots of information was left out. A 30-year story can’t be squeezed into 90 minutes — it’s impossible.

“But the idea was always to tell it from the children’s point of view. I haven’t just met with Rodrigo, Juan Manuel, Carlos and Claudio. I’ve met lots of people — before I filmed anything — to ask their forgiveness that nobody is ever going to know about, people who prefer to remain anonymous, and I haven’t excluded anybody. I haven’t just met victims of my father but also people who caused damage to my father, conversations in which I forgive but have also asked for forgiveness.”

Also read it in today’s Herald, Thursday, April 22, 2010.

Left, Matt Graham and David Labi

He arrived in BA in 2007 as “I wanted some fresh air in life. I’d been to film school in LA and then got an assistant’s job with quite high stress levels right after that, and I was fed up with going to parties on Saturday nights and talking about who you know, ‘can you get me into this meeting’ or ‘I’m doing better than you’. Los Angeles is a very insular world so I was desperate. After doing a post-grad in writing for screen and television at the University of Southern California (USC), I came here basically to concentrate on my writing career and to escape Los Angeles.”

Last Night… is a contender for the title of ultimate expatriate film for several reasons. First, its principle roles are played by foreigners based here permanently — a North American leading man is supported by a Kiwi actor. Second, the driving force is from the UK, thanks to its British director and producer David Labi, and script writer Matt. Some financial backing came from independent sources in the US, and of course the plot revolves around an expatriate who runs into trouble on his final evening in the Argentine capital.

Matt talks about how the project got started and how their ideas matched. “I met David through a mututal USC friend who set us up. We got on well right away and started to spend time together and talking about doing a project. We went to the cinema one rainy afternoon as I was depressed about the language school, and we saw a terrible Keanu Reeves film called Street Kings. That inspired us to do a film too, but about the expat community in BA itself. We were both into that terribly clichéd ‘Paris in the 1920s’ idea and keen on turning that into something on screenand knew we didn’t want to make an art movie of a cityscape with a moody voiceover.”

The suspense film clocks in at seven-and-a-half minutes, and in those 660 seconds Matt says he and David wanted to depict Buenos Aires’ expatriate community, which is very small. “Everyone knows everyone else here, and the environment is very conducive to the arts. But I always feel like an outsider here no matter what I do, so the main charcater is like that. He’s leaving, but he’s sucked in by a mysterious girl. His main conflict is trying to escape from his responsibilities, and if I analysed my own life, I think I came here to do exactly that. I didn’t want another assistant’s job.”

Matt also suggests that the modern world has played its part in creating this need to escape. “We live in an increasingly uncertain time, and the idea of conventional normality is breaking down fast. Depending on nature of your work, you can go anywhere — I could work in Antarctica as long as I had an internet connection,” he says.

BUGGED OUT. David Labi, however, got bitten by the Buenos Aires bug four years ago. Coming to Argentina to learn Spanish, he was so infected that he inadvertently remained on a more permanent basis. “I was travelling around the world, and ended up staying as I made a feature documentary. There was a rumour about a reported Holocaust survivor, an old woman, who lived at the end of the world on an island in Patagonia, so I decided to go and find her. And I found her, I became a filmmaker, and all that took me to the end, and past, my ticket extension.”

In the early days, having an Argentine girlfriend meant having a fairly a low profile on the expat scene, but after editing a bi-monthly magazine aimed at the long-termers living here, he became more involved, and then met Matt.“We both had the same ideas, and although it kept morphing into something different, I think the final product, bizarrely, is very close to the original idea we had. It’s come full circle.”

Although other foreigners have filmed shorts in Buenos Aires, David thinks this is a more encompassing project. “I think this is the first film about the expat experience. Although it’s fiction, it’s very much about an expat’s view of Buenos Aires and it’s not showing it from a porteño point of view. If it’s not too presumptious of me, it’s the ultimate expat film.”

Explaining further, he adds: “It’s like a mysterious fantasy but I tried to show the different elements of life here in it. You’ve got the expat bar, the drunken rich best friend who screws all the time… it’s charicatured but it shows the different worlds, with the main character penetrating the city, which he’s always wanted to do.”

Premièring in San Telmo on December 9, 2009, David is in the process, as director and producer, of trying to get Last Night… onto the international film festival circuit, and has submitted it to BAFICI 2010, the Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival.

“At some point I will be putting it online, but I want to get it out to the festivals first. And if anyone is holding a party or cultural event and would like to show it, then we’re interested in that, too.”

What would you, as a foreigner in Buenos Aires, do on your last night? Here are some suggestions: http://www.sorrelmw.com/expats-in-ba

In the Buenos Aires Herald:http://www.buenosairesherald.com/BreakingNews/View/19738

For more info check out: http://infernobuenosaires.blogspot.com/

Scorrish-Catalan actor Gary Piquer plays Principe Orsini in the Uruguayan and Spanish-funded movie which is part Western, part sports drama, part black comedy, a tasty cocktail of a production.

The “prince” is the salesman who has lost heart, and no longer believes in what he does. Manager, parent, best friend to Jacob van Oppen (Jouko Ahola), a wrestler the self-proclaimed prince touts as the strongest man in the world.

Fighting his own battles, the Spanish prince is complex, conniving, and spins such a line about his protege that the small town folk of Santa Maria also stop believing in him.

It’s great news for Piquer, who co-wrote the script with director Alvaro Brechner, to win the best actor accolade in the international film category at Mar del Plata.

When I interviewed him, Piquer said that Brechner was encouraging him to do so with various help books, and although he was an actor of the lazy variety, he would probably continue writing.

Congratulations to the cast and crew of Mal dia. Let’s hope Argentina gets to see it in the cinemas soon.