Jornal da Mostra
Un Mundo Maravilloso
Nº 404 > 29ª Mostra > 31/03/2006
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Leon Cakoff, de Guadalajara, para o ‘Jornal da Mostra’
Edição:
Renata de Almeida e Leon Cakoff
Edição:
Renata de Almeida e Leon Cakoff
A festival all the greater for special mention, interviews and good latin-american films
The Guadalajara International Film Festival (March 24-31, 2006), now in its 21st edition, has grown enormously under new direction of producer and diplomat Jorge Sánchez. Guadalajara has always offered both public (consisting, especially, of university students) and guests (basically, representatives from other international festivals) a good opportunity to view all that is new in Mexican cinema.In this new edition, the panorama of Latin-American and Spanish cinema is broader, with debates on the important roles of institutions furthering Latin-American cinema as co-producers and agents encouraging new films, with special tribute to Spanish actress Marisa Paredes and a focus on the career of Pedro Armendáriz, her father, an important symbol of Mexican cinema.
Several juries awarded generous prizes in all of the main categories, including to a choice of good projects for films as yet in development. With his talent as a diplomat and film producer, Jorge Sánchez counted on important political and company support, relevant socially in Mexico, to mark his festival as strategic in Latin-American geopolitics.
This success, to foreign eyes may, in some ways, be said to be at the cost of Mexican culture: the mariachis have given way to a prevalence of unwelcome DJs with their selection of techno music at official festival receptions. Although unassuming, one of the highlights of the Guadalajara festival is an exhibition on Spanish film maker Luis Buñuel as from the world repercussion of "Los Olvidados", on homeless children and juvenile delinquency, filmed in Mexico in 1950 - a departure by the film maker from his surrealistic milestones, filmed in France in 1928 and 1930 ("Un Chien Andalou", co-directed by Salvador Dali, and "L`Âge D`or") and on to implacable social realism. He was acclaimed as a hero by all of the intellectuals at the time, but also aroused the anger of many Mexicans who viewed "Los Olvidados" as a production that was extremely damaging to the image of Mexico worldwide.
The globalizing effect was satyrized in a Mexican film not included in the Guadalajara selection because it was shown in cinemas in the country before the festival began. "Un Mundo Maravilhoso", by Luis Estrada, is a satire precisely on those who first attacked "Los Olvidados/ Os Esquecidos" over 50 years ago. The acid comedy by Buñuel`s namesake concerns technocrats and politicians that produce statistical graphs on a decline in poverty and even fantasize on the non-existence of poverty. In real life, the poor are confined and made over. The unexpected occurs when one of the homeless is mistaken for a suicide and becomes notorious in the press. The Minister of the economy poses as his savior so as to further ambition and career. The end of the film holds a bitter surprise of black humor in acting out a favorite slogan in a poverty-stricken troupe: "Better to have been rich for a day than forever poor."
Translation into English: Clare Elizabeth Charity ( clarecharity@uol.com.br )
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