The 5 nuggets of the Biarritz Latin America Festival | EUROtoday
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DU 20 to twenty September 2025, Biarritz once more turns into the epicenter of Latin American cinema in France. Under the professional route of Jean-Christophe Berjon, the pageant provides a program that displays the inventive vitality of the continent, from Mexico to Argentina by way of Saint-Domingue. He will open with the projection of the political thriller The undercover agent (O Secreto agent), from the Brazilian Kleber Mendonça Filho, doubly rewarded on the Cannes Film Festival with the Jury Prize and the Male Interpretation Prize awarded to Wagner Moura.
A spherical desk pays tribute to Mario Vargas Llosa, who died final April, and literary conferences will notably welcome the Sinno snow author (Realidaded. Pol). The conferences of the Institute of Advanced Studies of Latin America (IHEAL), which is able to happen on Tuesday, September 23, can be dedicated to the migratory query in Latin America. We may even have an interest within the scenario in Venezuela and the presidential election in Bolivia. Finally, the French Claude Lelouch is sponsor of a brand new part of “smartphone shorts”. This 12 months, the Biarritz America Latin workforce has designed a pleasant collection of fictions and documentaries. Small collection of 5 vital movies to see in Biarritz and discover within the coming months in French theaters and on video streaming platforms.
“Aún es de Noche en Caracas”: a panoramic thriller in a venezuela in disaster
In this poignant movie directed by the duo of administrators Marité Ugás and Mariana Rondón, we observe Adelaida (interpreted with Talent by Natalia Reyes) in a Venezuela in the course of Chaos. In 2017, whereas the demonstrations towards the federal government of Nicolás Maduro rage within the streets of the Venezuelan capital, Adelaida should bury her mom. Upon his return from the cemetery, his mom’s house was occupied by ladies of the regime.
If it was shot primarily in Mexico, the movie skillfully makes use of archive photos of the 2017 demonstrations, which left practically 200 useless and 1000’s of injured. They anchor historical past in a brutal actuality, whereas the repression of the federal government of Nicolás Maduro, has hardened for the reason that electoral fraud of 2024. Photography captures the suffocating ambiance of Venezuela yesterday and at present, between energy cuts and concrete violence. Marité Ugás and Mariana Rondón – the latter had achieved the attractive Pelo Malo (Rebel hair) in 2013 – handle to create everlasting pressure. The psychological thriller is coupled with a strong metaphor on exile, greater than 8 million venezuelans who fled their nation.
“If going para chile”: the Venezuelan exodus dealing with the Rejection Wall
In this poignant documentary, Amilcar Infante and Sebastián González immerse us within the coronary heart of an unknown migration disaster: the large exodus of Venezuelans in direction of Chile. In 2021, tens of millions of Venezuelans proceed to flee their nation within the midst of an financial and social disaster. The digital camera takes us to Colchane, chili entrance door positioned at an altitude of three,700 meters and 5,000 kilometers from Caracas. “We have no more life there,” says a girl by bike who has been touring for eight days from the town of Portuguesa.
The ambiance is oppressive: the wind snaps the sheets whereas the llamas graze, detached to the human drama that’s performed out. The movie crudely exposes the financial actuality of this migration: whereas the typical wage in Venezuela is 20 to 30 {dollars} per 30 days, the smugglers require 150 to 200 {dollars} for the passage. Iquic, a port metropolis in northern Chile, is overwhelmed by the every day arrival of 200 to 300 migrants. Tension is steadily rising till anti-migrant Chilean demonstrators burn camps and assault migrants. The rising xenophobia is embodied by this resident who claims anti -personnel mines on the border … This 70 -minute documentary is a vital testimony to what has turn out to be, after Ukraine and Syria, one of the vital migratory crises of our time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwustxp_uvy
“Copan”: Urban Symphony on the coronary heart of São Paulo
In this fascinating documentary, Carine Wallauer immerses us within the bowels of Copan, an emblematic constructing of São Paulo designed by Oscar Niemeyer. A monumental constructing that homes greater than 5,000 residents, an actual microcosm of the Brazilian firm. She herself a former resident, the director captures with sensitivity the every day lifetime of this “vertical city”. “The building called me as a mirage in the desert calls the thirsty,” she says.
His digital camera floats from the air to the constructing then like a ghost within the yellow corridors and the small residences, revealing a mosaic of humanity: an electro DJ in entrance of his vinyl turntables, a creator of Onlyfans content material, a magician who’s making ready in his studio, an previous man making his gymnastics on the terrace … São Paulo seems as an city battle subject, Lighthouse within the night time. The movie takes on a political dimension by capturing the tensions of the 2022 presidential election which noticed Lula prevail over Bolsonaro. The discussions between staff and residents reveal the social fractures of up to date Brazil. More than simply an architectural documentary, “COPAN” is a deep meditation on society, the mirror of hopes and divisions of recent Brazil.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui6x830ysvs
“Tiguere”: a dive into poisonous masculinity
To uncover
The kangaroo of the day
Answer
The director of Santo Domingo José María Cabral indicators with Tiguere (“tiger”) a punch movie on Dominican masculinity. The movie follows Pablo, whose father Alberto directs a coaching camp aimed toward reworking adolescents into “tiguers”, the male archetype very best in Dominican and Caribbean tradition. Housed in a form of convent, a bunch of adolescents are compelled to wash at night time regardless of the chilly, crawl within the solar or to combat between them. The refined resistance of Pablo within the face of the instructor’s teachings reveals the hidden fragility of this method. The images of Hernán Herrera is exceptional, reworking forests and rivers into actual trenches. Through this story of confrontation between father and son, Cabral delivers a harsh criticism of Latin American machismo, whereas opening the door to a potential redemption.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTZZPIHT2R0
“La Hija Cóndor”: between ancestral custom and trendy goals
On the heights of the Bolivian Andes, Clara lives in an indigenous neighborhood the place she assists her mom, a midwife who transmitted to her the ancestral songs accompanying ladies throughout childbirth. The teenager, interpreted with accuracy by María Magdalena Sanizo, however nourished the hope of someday singing on the town. Shot in Quechua and Spanish, the movie explores tensions between cultural heritage and private aspirations. Director Olmos Tormo captures the duality that lives in Clara with sensitivity: on the one hand, his attachment to a millennial custom the place the earth – the Pachamama – is taken into account a nourishing girl, and on the opposite, his ardent need to turn out to be a star of people music on the town. The large pictures on the mountains distinction with the intimacy of childbirth scenes the place conventional songs create an nearly mystical ambiance. After Wiñay in 2019, Olmos Torrico confirms his expertise to inform tales deeply rooted in Bolivian tradition whereas touching the common.
https://www.lepoint.fr/culture/cinema-les-5-pepites-du-festival-biarritz-amerique-latine-20-09-2025-2599076_3.php