Curator/Historian Ángela López Ruiz and filmmaker Eduardo Darino In Person

With cinematic traditions almost as old as the film medium itself, Montevideo, Uruguay, was, for much of the 20th Century a vibrant hub in the international filmmaking community. Inspired by an adventurous annual film festival—Festival de Cine Experimental y Documental—which exposed local artists to works by (among others) Stan Brakhage, John Grierson, Bert Hanstraa, Peter Kubelka, Arthur Lipsett and Norman McLaren (many of whom appeared in person), Uruguayan filmmakers had, by the 1960s, created a large body of independent and non-commercial experimental film work, much of which was archived at Cinearte Sodre, a major Latin American film archive. Tragically, fires in the early 1970s destroyed both this archive and this festival’s home venue, casting the history of this movement into obscurity. For this very rare screening, film historian/curator Ángela López Ruiz will appear in person to discuss this lost history and the efforts to document this era and preserve this history.

Screening will include rare historical works and exemplars of contemporary Uruguayan cinema, with the program divided into three sections:

Genealogy of the Historical Experimental Cinema: Cariri (1954) by Miguel Castro, Colour (1955) by Lydia García Millán, Eliptic (1962) by Carlos Bayarrés and Horacio Ferreira, Apex (1965) by Eduardo Darino, and Air (1988) by Clemente Padín

Territoriality and Memory: Halation (2009) by Martín Klein, The Dreams by Ernesto Rizzo (2012) by Javier Abreu and Julia Castagno, Collapse II (2014) by Guillermo Zabaleta, RainMontevideo (2009) by Teresa Puppo and The Land for the Mouth Die (2011) by Anaclara Talento

Affectivity and Affections: Piñata (2011) by Diego Nessi, The Empty Pool (2015) by Luciana Damiani and Shoulder (2012) by Jessie Young

This program is made possible thanks to the support of Los Angeles Filmforum.