A Dog Out on His Own: Raúl Perrone and the Poetics of Stubbornness

Raúl Perrone (Ituzaingó, 1952) is one of the most prolific and emphatically independent filmmakers in Argentina. Often seen as one of the precursors of the so-called ‘New Argentine Cinema’, Perrone's work includes more than 35 films, many of them having won prizes at national and international festivals. Among his most famous works is the mythical ‘Ituzaingó Trilogy’ – made up of Labios de churrasco [Steak Lips] (1992), Graciadió [Thank God] (1997), y Cinco pal’ peso [5 a peso] (1998) – Late corazón [Heartbeat] (2002), Ocho años después [Eight Years Later] (2005) and the recent P3ND3JO5 (2013), awarded the Best Director of the Argentine Competition Prize at the 2013 BAFICI (Buenos Aires Festival of Independent Cinema).

Perrone is an outstanding figure on the Argentine film scene, both because of his refusal to use traditional means to finance his films, and his refusal to leave Ituzaingó, whether to attend festivals or to film. This interview, done over Skype on 4 February 2014 attempts to bring the director to the attention of a specialised English-speaking academic audience, exploring his career, his working philosophy and his relation to the world of Argentine cinema.

Fernando Sdrigotti: Thanks for the interview, Raúl. I wonder whether to start you could run over the course your career. Did you start as a cartoonist? When did you get involved in film?

Raúl Perrone: No, in fact I got started in cinema when I was seventeen. Here in Ituzaingó, I was wandering about with some friends when I went into a photo shop and said to the guy who was running it that I wanted to make films, and he said ‘That'll cost you a bit’. In those days it was like asking for your 21^st birthday present. And so I made my first short and showed it somewhere called, still called, UNCIPAR1 and I won and started to go there every Saturday. People showed fiction there, and Caldini2 was there, lots of people. Then I got married at 19, became a father and needed to earn a living. And then I found work as a cartoonist, which was my other passion, I've been drawing since I was five years old, till I was twenty and a bit. After doing other jobs I finished up at magazines like Goles, El Gráfico, Cronista comercial, and Tiempo argentino, and so I had a career as a quite important cartoonist.

FS: When you started with film, was there any sort of ‘movement’ in Ituzaingó?

RP: No, there was nothing. If only there had been 1% of the information around that there is now. I always had this childhood fantasy of making films, producing my own films. I always had the soul of a leader, and with the neighbourhood kids, in an abandoned swimming pool, go figure, I made TV series, that sort of thing. And when I was a bit older, 16 or 17, I got it into my head to make a film on Super 8, which was what was available then. And that's how I got started, I made four or five films, with my friends as usual. And later I got to know about UNCIPAR, which is still there in the Calle Alsina every Saturday, where people would show shorts, an experimental Saturday, a fiction Saturday, a documentary Saturday. And I showed there, I was like a fish out of water, let's say, because I never felt part of anything anywhere. When I was drawing, I never went to meetings with cartoonists. Now I'm filming I'm not part of anything. I don't believe in that sort of thing, general bollocks where people go to chat and have a good time. When I want to have a good time, I do it somewhere else, no need to get involved in all that.

FS: Is that isolation, so to speak, something that's changing now that you're a recognised figure in Argentine cinema?

RP: Now I have even less connection than before. I don't feel part of anything and I think I'm part of everything. The truth is I don't have any connection to the world of the cinema, I'm not friends with film directors or critics. I know them, they know me, but I don't have much of a social life, I'm a solitary type, holed up in my studio, I even have a mini-cinema, I do my editing right here, as if I'd set up my own Perrocittá.

FS: Do you feel that being from Ituzaingó has somehow contributed to keeping you isolated from the rest of the spaces devoted to cinema, for example in Buenos Aires?

RP: I think – sincerely – that the people who want to belong to this or that movement, group, are dick wits without the least personality. Belong to what? Going to the latest trendy bar? Buying the latest model car? Is that belonging? These people really get to me. When I worked as a cartoonist, at the end of Cronista comercial, its offices were in Palermo Hollywood3, because that's where the production companies were: in my building you had Canal 2 and America, and I used to go to the bar where everybody ate and saw the idiocy of belonging. But in reality, belonging to what? I get on badly with society, in general. So I don't go to festivals and I don't have contact with people connected to the medium. Now, with Skype I can somehow let people have access, see me and ask questions, that type of thing.

FS: You never go to festivals? BAFICI is on. You never go to BAFICI?

RP: I go just the once because not to would also be stupid, since it's so close, and I wouldn't get to see my films. But only once, when my film opens and I go all day, to the morning session when they hold the press conference, I do interviews all day and then at night I show the film, and then I don't go again. I don't watch films. I don't like that environment, because they exchange cards and talk about things that have nothing to do with cinema.

FS: And now that your films, like P3ND3J05, are getting international recognition, how do you manage the demand and need for you to interact with an industry that, like it or not, is part of the world of cinema?

RP: I manage it in the same way, telling them that I won't go. Look, now I've been invited to all the festivals. To Rotterdam, now to FICUNAM4, where the film is going and I was invited to be the president of the jury – for Mexican films – and give a sort of seminar there, and well, they got pissed off a bit but I'm not going. Nothing will make me shift, not a girl of 20 [Laughter].

FS: And your recent trip to Córdoba to shoot your new film? Why that trip and not others?

RP: I also went to Rosario, because it's near me, about three hours away. I was at the South American Festival and I've got friends from the town, but I only went once or twice. I went to Córdoba because they've improved the road and what used to take 12 hours now takes 8. I went with Pablo Ratto, my producer, who drove me. I was happy to go because I couldn't have shot those kids anywhere else but Córdoba. But it's not going to become a habit. And it goes without saying that if I'm not going to film then I get really bored and I don't put up with it very well. I don't have the urge to get to know a city, let's say. There's nothing to generate interest for me. Apart from making films.

FS: Turning to another topic, I want to ask you something about what's been called – at least in some circles – New Argentine Cinema – a label that you've been tagged with, as part of the movement or as a predecessor, etc. What's your opinion about this? Do you have anything to do with it? Does New Argentine Cinema exist or not?

RP: Look, I can't get worked up about this, not knowing that I was the first. I premiered Labios de churrasco in 1992. There was no New Argentine Cinema, that was something invented afterwards, from 95, 96, OK? I agree that at that point I was angry and used to say that however fast I went I always got there late, because Labios de churrasco could have been the Mundo grúa (Pablo Trapero, 1999) of its time, if I'd filmed with a production company and wrapped up and moved as happened later. I did everything on video, like always, pure labour, and the film ended up being the cover of magazines and reached 5000 people over 10 days. It was like a milestone. And then I made Graciadió, and 5 pal peso. I thought I'd invented a new way of filming. Now what I do is common currency. Today, there's MALBA5, the Rojas Centre6, lots of other places that didn't exist then. The truth is that I don't really care about that, but people have to be somewhere: godfather, father, uncle, brother, I'm not too concerned about New Argentine Cinema. Nowadays the Internet puts things in their place. Time puts things in their place.

FS: When you mention Labios de churrasco and you say that somehow it could have been the Mundo grúa of its time, do you feel that because it's a film about Ituzaingó, and filmed there, this had something to do with the place it had? Is there a periphery to Argentine cinema? Or does it have to do with different choices, let's say, about production or aesthetics?

RP: I don't think so. On the contrary, because Mundo grúa is out of La Matanza7. I refer to Mundo grúa because Lita Stantic8 grabbed it, and that was that. I'm referring to the fact that I always make things in my own way. And in ‘independent’ cinema, up to 4 or 5 years ago nobody was filming in video. And I showed with time, without wanting to, that digital consumed celluloid. Where is celluloid now? It's dying, in its death throes. It's all digital, video. At that point, perhaps I was out in front without realising it.

FS: I'm interested in what you're saying about format. There are people who use it for experimental reasons, others who go to digital as a question of economy. When you use digital and video, is it for reasons of cost or aesthetics? How did you come to video?

RP: I got there because I had no chance of making films in celluloid. So I made films on video. I never treated video as video. Anyway nowadays it's nearly Stone Age all of that, because Labios de churrasco was shown on VHS. I found out that at the Lorca9 in the upstairs theatre they'd bought a projector and had shown Bad Lieutenant10 on VHS, and I thought ‘If they can show films from abroad, why not mine?’ I went and somehow the whole thing exploded. I'd already been showing Ángeles (1992), burbling on, and 100 or 200 people were coming. And that was when the thing exploded, you see? I was in the bar opposite the Lorca and there was a queue that went round the corner. And I was wondering what the hell people were going to see, and it turned out to be Labios de churrasco. Because I had the sort of audience that said ‘That guy does things with kids that you don't see, where they talk differently’. That wouldn't have happened without video. But going back to your previous question, about the periphery, I don't think that has anything to do with it. But I do think that I put Ituzaingó on the map. It was always more than the periphery, what complicated matters was not having a producer, that sort of thing that everyone does, because they don't interest me.

FS: Could the fact that you worked so much in video have something to do with the difficulties that you encountered?

RP: The only film of mine that was turned into 35mm was La mecha [The Fuse], because once we'd finished we got together with Pablo Trapero11 at my place and he wanted to manage it, which turned out well for me because he put the infrastructure in place and we could do the transfer. But the people were already thinking ‘The Perro is selling out’ and the following week I made a film using a still camera. Now with P3ND3JO5 for example, they say even heavier things. That there has never been a film like it, nor is there ever going to be. That it's perhaps the film that Murnau would have wanted to make. Whatever. They're the sort of excessive eulogies that if I believed them I'd panic. But since P3ND3JO5 I've already done another couple of films.

FS: Are they part of a single project?

RP: It's a new trilogy. P3ND3JO5, Favula and Sinfonía [Symphony] which will last two and a quarter hours.

FS: What's the guiding thread that links the three films?

RP: Style, this new look on cinema that I've got. They're films that have a new language that look like they are made in another period and yet at the same time have to do with the future.

FS: And why another trilogy?

RP: I like making films in threes, to make me believe that I can make them.

FS: Is it a form of discipline?

RP: Discipline, no. It's what I was saying to you earlier. With trilogies, in some way I'm finding out the way that this comes together in a look. Like I did with Tríptico (2011)12, some years ago now, which was put out afterwards in a very nice case. Not only Tríptico but the ‘Ituzaingó Trilogy’ which was put out in a large case with a book. For me that's very important, because I try to look after my films, and not just have them made available anyhow. The last one was put out by the University of La Matanza and is a luxury product, let's say, like you can get in Europe. I like that a great deal. That my films are looked after and given the value I think they ought to have. I can't complain because I don't know if there are many people in the mainstream who can have that. Perhaps because they're not interested. But I am interested in my films being looked after like paintings.

FS: Going back to the subject of trilogies, something that has always caught my attention is your film 8 años después [8 years later]. What place does it have in your oeuvre? I say that because it's clearly a continuation of the ‘Ituzaingó Trilogy’ but is rarely mentioned in connection with those films.

RP: I liked going back to Graciadió but I wanted to go back…I always like to look for the twist and not fall into doing the obvious…I didn't want to come back with the characters eight years on, so I liked to be able to set up a little trap, which is bring together two of the actors in 8 años después, with a great psychological effort, because I made the film in a day and a half and we fell out…it was very difficult to do it…Because I brought them to a state in which they said a bunch of things to each other, settled scores, and all of that was to a certain extent manipulated by me all in shot…and bringing her along without her knowing that he was going to be there and having him hidden…it was a way of working that was really important but also a bit distasteful. But the truth is that I liked being able to make her do it. It's a film that I love, 8 años después. But yes the subject of trilogies. I've made a number. My films are governed by the sign of 3. I also made the Galván trilogy, which comprises Late un corazón (2002), La mecha (2003), La navidad de Ofelia and Galván [The Childhood of Ofelia and Galván] (2006). I made a Japanese trilogy, I had a Zen period. They are things that I somehow keep inventing so as to be able to continue developing my audiovisual project, what I think about cinema, and just playing. Now I'm at a stage of complete freedom. And really, if formerly nothing mattered to me that much, now nothing matters at all and I make what I want, I can do sound post-production and edit my films myself. That is I'm as free as a kid playing, aren't I?

FS: A while back I saw your ‘Ten Commandments’13, where you say that you have to work with a maximum of 8 people, but some time ago you edited to say that there have to be no more than 6. How many people do you work with?

RP: Now I'm working with 2 or 3 people. One camera. Sometimes I do camera and he operates and we do the sound. We do it all along with an assistant or someone who's there to give us a hand. This is really one of the problems I had in Córdoba because I had a lot of kids who found out I was going there and wanted to come along to the shooting. And I had to ask them not to, because I like to work alone. I have a way of working where I don't really need people getting on my tits, so to speak.

FS: And having such a small team, without a casting director, or anything like that, how do you handle difficulties with the actors? Especially given you use non-professional actors?

RP: It's all very natural. That's why I'm telling you that there can't be any people on the set. That throws the actors off, because I achieve an automatic empathy with people, with the way I am and the way I talk. And then I try and get them not to notice the camera, you see, because if you've got 4 or 5 people sticking their oar in, taking photographs, that shifts the atmosphere, my atmosphere, what I've managed to achieve. Look, when I went to film in Córdoba, to film some kids who had no internet, no TV, who didn't go to the movies, it was difficult to make them understand that I'm making a film – what idea of a film can they possibly have? Nevertheless after my being there for a couple of hours they were doing what I wanted. But when there was some guy, someone from production, there taking photos, and getting involved and talking to them, I had to ask him to leave, because they were getting embarrassed, because I ask them to do things that are sometime difficult, and if they're not alone with the person who gives them confidence, they don't come across…all that forms part of a method, a way of working….People see me from a distance, chatting with the actors, and that's how I work. Getting someone to give themselves totally to me, hypnotising them, so that when I say ‘Good, now you're going to do this’ the guy will do it, you see? He has no education, bad education, in acting, doesn't ask you ‘Where am I coming from? Where am I going? What am I doing?’, nothing, they don't ask anything. There's an immense virginity, that I have to take charge of and get the best out of. I've been doing this sort of work for a good number of years now.

FS: And what's your strategy when you work with professional actors? And in your films like Zapada [Mined] or the Trilogy where there's a hybrid cast, with people coming from the theatre or television, or nowhere? How do you deal with the differences?

RP: For me Capusotto14 is the same as the kid next door. I can't make him feel that Capusotto is Capusotto. This is a problem that lots of people have when they treat actors like gods. They are people, get me? If I go somewhere and they're waiting for me with cameras like I was some rock star…I feel profoundly ashamed. I'm a guy who makes movies. It's a feature stuck in society and people are idiotic because of it…and it's other people who believe it. That's the problem it seems to me. On my own, in other words, I know who I am. Here I know who I am. And I make some of the idiots know who I am. But when there are people around who deserve my respect, I try to be a bit more humble and put myself on their level. Capusotto and me got on real well. Campi15 had already worked with me. And Capusotto wasn't the Capusotto of today. At that point he wasn't doing what he does now. That film is from 1999. But if it had been the Capusotto of today, I tell you. What he does in Zapada is a character that is absolutely different from who Capusotto is…In the film he's a guy who's pissed off all the time. If I ring him so he plays himself, what's the point?

FS: A while ago I read an interview in which you said that you weren't interested in making films about people of your own age, that it was old and young people who interested you, but in the films you make there is more about ‘youth’ than ‘age’. Why is this?

RP: Because that's what I am, an adolescent. I get bored with guys my age, really bored, they're tango loving crybabies. There are some who aren't, because nowadays it seems we're all younger than our real age, and we live a bit better, but there are old heads. Adolescence has always been in my films since Labios de churrasco, it appears every once in a while. As do older people like Galván, Luján. And if not the very young kids, like in that film I made in Córdoba, where they're 10 or 15. It also seems to me to do with what one wants to tell, I don't say to myself ‘Now I'm going to make a film like this or that’, I just wanted to make a film, I went and made it. I don't wonder about it too much, see? I don't speculate, don't think about, I don't plan.

FS: How does one of your films begin?

RP: It begins with a thought, a photo, one of my films, some film I remember, a still, an idea. That's why I insist on the ideas, all the time. You can have the best camera, the best crew, but if you don't have an idea then you don't have a film. So for me ideas – however tiny – and they're always simple – are extremely complicated, because what is simple is complicated, complex. The complex in turn is simple. That looks like I'm playing with words, but for me complexity does not exist, not in the sense of how it's dealt with, do you see? Complexity is produced by people who are insecure; ‘Let's go there. No, let's go there. There's better. No, it's better there.’ You can't make a film if you're insecure, not and make films like I do. Afterwards it could be a good film, a bad one, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the sureness you have when you're filming, of making a film in a day and a half, while in a day and a half some other guy would have done two shots to see how it works and then you're in Córdoba for a month and a half getting pissed off. I get there and want to come back as soon as possible; I go, film and come back. What am I going to be doing hanging around?

FS: Do you work with a script? I mean so as to have the freedom of shooting so quickly.

RP: Some times I have some notes, that I then forget to bring. Or when I go to shoot I throw them away because I'm never that attached to them. But no, basically I know what I have in my head, and I love improvising – I always say that I love improvisation but I'm not improvised myself, because that would lose time, for me and for other people. And afterwards I love chance, I don't let it go by. Sometime chance is treated like it's a dirty word, but chance is marvellous. If something happens at that moment, I take it, film it, and then see if I can put it in or not.

FS: There's a scene in the Trilogy where Violeta Naón comes walking down the street and a dog attacks her. Something that was clearly fortuitous….

RP: Obviously, I remember at the time some critic, one of those around during that period, said: ‘El Perro puts shots in his films that no other director could’. Perhaps he was right, because that's my style. Because that's chance. It is a scene that I can assure you every time we showed it in a cinema, people exploded with laughter. And that was marvellous, because the girl – that's what the people who work with me have: they know it's all valid and until I say ‘Cut’ they carry on filming – didn't turn round and say ‘Hey Perro, look’; the girl carried on, do you get me? It's a code we've established. Although I no longer have to say because they already know me. The same as they're all waiting for me to get pissed off at some point…It's part of my myth.

FS: Going to your later films, for example P3ND3JO5. Where did you get the somewhat megalomaniac idea of making a silent film with electronic cumbia?

RP: In fact, my cinema – like I was saying, when I was talking about Los actos cotidianos [Everyday Acts] – was always based in language, I was always concerned that the performances were good, credible – that the audience believed in what was going on, that it didn't know if it's true or a lie. And my films never lasted longer than 80 minutes, and in the last films I'd decided for personal pique not to have music. There were various things they did that I tried to change, to search for new things. Already with Las pibas [The Girls] there was talk of a change; and it worked well. When I began to make that picture, from the start it was going to be a film, part of the old way of working of the trilogy, and later I said to myself ‘Why a trilogy? Why not make a single, longer film?’ And then I was putting together a production design, how you could do it and I always knew there was going to be no dialogue, despite my making them say what was on the boards – as it wasn't yet decided about the dialogue, they spoke it. But the truth is that people were talking a lot of bollocks, and I'm half bored listening to people, so that I said to myself ‘I'm going to take the text out of it’. And I remember that one day I had some 20 minutes and I showed them to a couple of friends and they absolutely got the film…Because the images were so strong that you knew that they were arguing, for example you knew that this kid wanted to pick up the other boy, let's say…Anyway I went back to putting up boards because there were details that I wanted the audience to know and if there wasn't a board saying that they'd killed the guy they were not going to understand, and if there wasn't the board about the pregnancy then they wouldn't understand either, 2 or 3 points. On top of that I'd put opera and some other things that I liked. A woman friend who was in my workshop, Evelyn, was insisting that there should be a kid there who was playing a cumbia that wasn't a cumbia, who was a fan of a my films, and I said ‘Pass me an mp3, don't piss me about, and see if it works’ and I listened to it and really my head flew off. It's what's in the film: DJ NEGRODUB he's called. And I said, good, give me some more, and some of it I liked, and some of it I didn't, and then we had a meeting. We got to know each other and I met his partner CHECUMBE and some other dude who's not around any more called DJ TAS, and we got together and I told them that I was never going to show them the film, that I was never going to their studio, and that they should do things that I was going to ask them…And they began sending me mp3s, that I was asking for this, that and the other… ‘Here, see, that sort of thing’…And those things that sometimes happen are things that I do, they fit into the film magically. I would even say that lots of the things I put in had the tempo of the film. This happens and I don't know inside what…like cataloguing it not putting it in. Because it's very strange…Trying to put in the music so that it has a sequence. There's a very strong connection clearly. And after I had Puccini and I gave them Puccini for them to remix and they went mad. I gave them Handel and now we're trying out other things that I've given them, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and it's really exploded. All the time we're at it ‘Blow up, blow up, blow up’ and it exploded.

FS: Did you realise you had something that was going to have such an effect?

RP: Look, if you're asking what various people have ‘Do you know what sort of film you're making?’ I'd have to be pretty stupid not to know that I made a film different from everything that was being made and that I was making. Now if it was going to be liked or not…If I had a crystal ball I'd be very bored…I was very afraid, because despite all my films having been baptised in BAFICI, they've all had good reviews, everything's gone fine, this was different. So I called Pablo Ratto, who I knew on Facebook, because I needed someone to do what I don't, stand up to the journalists, Then as I almost don't go to BAFICI the guys who never met me had to get hold of me by phone, the festivals that wanted my film were sending me emails and I wasn't replying. As I needed someone I said ‘Come and see me, I've got a film’, I already knew that the film was going to BAFICI but I told him nothing so as not to bias him, and the guy saw it and got off, he said ‘It's incredible, thanks for having called on me’ and really we got on, he took charge of all that, of the burbling on, replying to emails, sending copies, being in contact with festivals…He asks me about all that…whether I want to or not…But he took over a chunk of it so I could get on and create quietly and I don't have to be concerned with all that. Nor did I want P3ND3JO5 – I don't know why so don't ask me for an explanation – to be just one more film, I knew that it wasn't just one more film. I don't know why but I knew that it wasn't just one more film.

FS: But this doesn't mean – somehow – delegating your independence in relation to the film?

RP: In reality, no, because Pablo was never involved in the shooting or the production. I made the film like I always do. He took the film when it was already finished, like Trapero did with La mecha. What happens is that he devotes himself to this. I'm a bit of a weird guy, you see, difficult, you have to put up with me, I have the things I do, I manage on my own. He knows that I can carry on only if I want to – nothing would stop me doing it. But I said ‘Good, everything depends on our getting on: if we do then we work, if not fine, OK?’ In fact we did, and he adapted to my way of being and I'll have to slowly adapt to his, because he's into other projects too, but he knows that this film is very important and really we've turned out well, the work goes well, and I'm very happy, the film's doing well and he's managing this, and he has to keep struggling for me not to travel and he doesn't put demands on me, ‘Look, Perro’. He respects my decisions.

FS: What's the future of P3ND3JO5? Where is it going?

RP: Like I was saying, now it's going to Rotterdam, FICUNAM, the festival at UNAM, a great university, and it's already in the fourth edition, and after it's going to Lisbon, and I don't know. Because it's already opened and it's doing very well. It's going to festival number 25. I suppose at some point we'll put out a Blu ray version, and some booklet with something…But P3ND3JO5 goes on, because they're all asking for it and they keep doing interviews, and there are festivals that I say no to, because I'm not very interested in them. I might have a grand retrospective in Brazil, in São Paulo. This year I decided not to go to BAFICI and I suppose that Favulamight go to Europe, so we'll see what happens.

FS: To finish up, I'd like you to tell me a bit about your film workshop? How do you approach the training of a film-maker? Is there a Perrone school of film-making?

RP: In fact, it's a bit weird, because I don't see myself as a teacher, it's a word I don't like – some words I really don't like. I don't like ‘teacher’, I don't like ‘film director’, I don't like those labels. But the workshop has been going for 15 years now: a bit to break my phobias. So I realised that it's really good to educate and train people, and in the way I work. Saturdays and Thursdays we make shorts live, then we watch them on a TV and discuss them, and it's an intense experience. I have more than 150 students, people come from all over Latin America, from Chile, Venezuela, they've heard about the workshop, when they come to Argentina with grants to make something and they also come to the workshop. I have more than 50 on Thursdays and some 80 on Saturdays. It's a labour that I love, I'm already missing it, we start in March, already there's an open call, about 200 people to interview and there are still people, I'm going to give the opportunity to people who are already in my workshop, who are already there. They've made a lot of shorts, lots of full length movies. It's a full time job, because when the workshop is over we go to the bar and 50 people come along and we stay talking about cinema, and it's really hard graft, and a possibility I would have liked to have had 20 years ago: being with some guy who made movies, talking to you, advising you, someone you could show stuff to, someone not too hard to access. That seems great to me, don't you think, having a possibility like that. I think those kids…I don't know if they realise what period they're living through, you know, with Internet, Skype, cameras, being able to edit at home. It's a fantasy I had sometime, when I was fucked off with having to go and ask for time to edit somewhere and having to do it at night and then go into the day job with no sleep. I used to think that everyone was going to be able to make a film at home, and now I'm doing it. A lot of water under the bridge, you know? And these people don't realise it because they've never known anything else. All the time I was having to ask, as a favour, or paying some guy who would do the edit but didn't give a shit about what you'd made, and you had to explain things to him all the time, and all that was important for him was the money that they were paying him. But out of all that I think I always managed to pull out the positive, and that's why I carried on doing what I do. There was no alternative. Like Roberto Arlt said, the arrogance to work, that's it, OK? So, I really feel the pleasure and taste of things. If everything had been served up on a plate, it wouldn't have been the same.

Translated by Philip Derbyshire

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Notes on contributors

Fernando Sdrigotti

Fernando Sdrigotti is a writer. He holds a PhD in Latin American Studies from Birkbeck, University of London. His research interests include film, philosophy, spatial and urban theory, and radical politics. His work (both of fiction and non-fiction) has been published in English, Spanish, and Norwegian.

Notes

¹ Unión de cineistas de paso reducido, an organisation of experimental filmmakers. UNCIPAR was founded in 1972 aiming to provide an independent exhibition space and it continues to operate in different spaces in the Provincia de Buenos Aires. See: http://www.uncipar.com.ar.

² Claudio Caldini, an experimental film-maker.

³ An area of Buenos Aires connected to night time entertainment and chic bohemia.

⁴ International Film Festival of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

⁵ The Buenos Aires Museum of Latin American Art.

⁶ The Ricardo Rojas Cultural Centre, Buenos Aires.

⁷ A neighbourhood on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.

⁸ Élida Stantic is one of the most famous producers of Argentine cinema, known principally for her work with post-dictatorship cinema.

⁹ The García Lorca Cultural Centre and Popular Library, Buenos Aires.

¹⁰Bad Lieutenant, Abel Ferrara, 1992.

¹¹ Well-known Argentine film-maker who directed Mundo grúa (1999) and El bonaerense (2002) among other films.

¹² Made up of Los actos cotidianos [Everyday Acts], Luján, and Al final la vida sigue igual [In the End Life Goes on the Same].

¹³ Perrone's ‘Decalogue/Ten Commandments’ is a manifesto, a semi-parody of Dogma 95, where the director puts forward his philosophy of cinema. It can be accessed via the author's web site http://www.raulperrone.com/decalogo/decalogo.htm.

¹⁴ Diego Capusotto a renowned Argentine comedian.

¹⁵ Martín Campilongo, Argentine comedian.