Movies Features
Latin American veterans out to conquer Cannes
By DPA
May 10, 2008, 14:51 GMT

Buenos Aires - The upcoming Cannes Film Festival will feature an important Latin American presence, with works by veteran directors Lucrecia Martel and Pablo Trapero, of Argentina, and Walter Salles and Fernando Meirelles, of Brazil, in the official competition.

All four of them are very well established on the international movie scene, with considerable experience (and prizes) at major events, and are hardly likely to be overwhelmed by the prestigious festival.

Meirelles, 52, will be opening the festival with Blindness, and after some hesitation the film - starring Julianne Moore as the only person who is able to see in a town affected by sudden blindness - will also be competing for the Palme d'Or.

'Fifteen days ago they put us in a sort of limbo with relation to Cannes. There was an invitation to open the festival, but, to my surprise, the French distributor did not accept it. They believed that the film should be in the competition,' Meirelles explained.

Finally, the festival 'made an exception' and the film - based on a novel by Portuguese Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago - can have its cake and eat it too.

Palace II (2001) had already won a prize at the Berlin Film Festival, but Meirelles is world-famous following the success of Cidade de Deus (2002), which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director.

The later The Constant Gardener (2005) made him a candidate for the Golden Globe for Best Director, and also earned him a nomination for the Golden Lion in Venice, among other signs of international recognition.

Still, Meirelles is not quite comfortable with seeing Blindness at Cannes.

'I feel as happy as I feel nervous with that space they have given us,' he admitted. 'I know that Blindness is not the most appropriate film to precede a cocktail and a party, and I know the story will annoy some people.'

Salles, 52, will be competing for the Palme d'Or with Linha de Passe, a feature he co-directed with Daniela Thomas.

The Brazilian has come quite a distance since he won the Golden Bear in Berlin in 1998, with the acclaimed Central do Brasil, and he has claimed many more awards along the way.

Diarios de Motocicleta (2004) was nominated for the Golden Palm and won two prizes at Cannes.

Despite his overwhelming CV, Salles defined Linha de Passe - based on two documentaries by his brother Joao Salles - as 'a film that seeks to be small.'

According to the director, seeing the feature on poor aspiring footballers in the official competition at Cannes 'is already a prize.'

The film stars Central do Brasil main actor Vinicius de Oliveira, who apparently got pretty good with the ball while preparing the part.

'Walter jokes that the film is just a pretext to get Vinicius up to scratch and to be able now to sell him off to Barcelona,' co-director Daniela Thomas said.

Martel, 41, will be competing at Cannes with La Mujer Sin Cabeza, about a woman who believes she killed someone while she was driving. Like Salles, she not only has experience in such events but has also known considerable festival success.

Her first film as a director, La Cienaga (2001), won a prize in Berlin and was even nominated for the Golden Bear.

Her second film, La Nina Santa, was nominated for the Golden Palm at Cannes, and (again like Salles) she has been a member of the juries of both festivals.

The fourth Latin American film in the official competition this year at Cannes is Trapero's Leonera - about a woman who goes to jail during her pregnancy and then tries to bring up her young child in prison - which is co-produced by Salles.

Trapero, 36, has never been nominated for the top prize at a major festival, but his debut feature Mundo Grua caused a stir in Venice in 1999.

This is a record year for Argentine cinema at Cannes, the first time ever that two Argentine films are competing for the Palme d'Or.

Outside the official competition, Pablo Fendrik's La Sangre Brota, Lisandro Alonso's Liverpool and Marco Berger's El Reloj will keep the Argentine flag flying.

Moreover, beyond the work of its own film-makers, the South American country will also be to some extent represented in the official competition by Steven Soderbergh's lengthy feature Che, on the life of Argentine-born revolutionary Ernesto Guevara, and outside the competition by an Emir Kusturica documentary on Argentine football legend Diego Maradona.

'I am really happy. This is really great, it has never happened before,' Martel told Argentine daily Clarin from Paris.

'It is something like the year of Argentine chauvinism. There is Che, Maradona, us ...,' she laughed.

On a more serious note, she interpreted the long list of Argentine films present at Cannes as a sign that the country's film-makers 'are not doing things so badly.'

The strength of Argentine cinema lies in its diversity, Martina Gusman - main actress and executive producer of Leonera, as well as Trapero's wife - told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Alongside her husband, co-producer Salles and many others, Gusman seeks to project a comparable whole in Latin American cinema, to 'position it, to find a place for it.'

'If there is a tremendous diversity within Argentina alone, imagine across Latin America!' she admitted.

However, she is not ready to give up on a regional outlook just yet.

'I think it is important to draw something from Latin American culture, even if every country is different,' Gusman stressed.

Cannes seems ready to assist her, Trapero, Salles and others in this effort, with a presence that is not only an acknowledgement of the current quality of the region's cinema, but also a springboard for its future vitality.