Month: March 2013

Giorgio Agamben: “En Europa asistimos a un vaciamiento de la democracia”

-En su libro sorprende que la mayor parte de los autores analizados son poetas. A excepción de Elsa Morante, Carlo Emilio Gadda y Giorgio Manganelli, no hay menciones de otros narradores. ¿No le parece una operación selectiva excluyente?

-Aquí el canon y la visión personal convergen. Yo tengo una visión de la literatura italiana en la que prevalece el polo dantesco y, por lo tanto, profundamente antipetraquista. Y en lo moderno, a favor de la prosa de Leopardi y categóricamente antimanzoniana. Manganelli es para mí el mayor narrador italiano de la segunda mitad del siglo XX. Elsa Morante está presente también por razones íntimas. Ella, más que una amiga (yo tenía veintidós años cuando Juan Rodolfo Wilcock me la presentó), me inició no sólo en la literatura sino también en la vida.

-¿Y qué recuerda de Wilcock?

-Conocí a Wilcock en Roma en 1962 o 1963. Yo tenía veinte años y él era el primer escritor que conocía de cerca. El encuentro no fue fácil, porque Johnny -como lo llamaban los amigos- era el individuo más extravagante que conocí en mi vida. Te paralizaba tanto por su esnobismo como por sus silencios. Cuando lo conocí, estudiaba Wittgenstein (me contó que le había dado unas clases a Moravia) y se sentía a gusto con la literatura y con la filosofía. Su anticonformismo es significativo ya en el título de la revista que escribía casi solo: L’Intelligenza. Era un cuerpo ajeno al ambiente romano, pero conocía y frecuentaba a los escritores más importantes.

Giorgio Agamben: “En Europa asistimos a un vaciamiento de la democracia” – 22.03.2013 – lanacion.com  .

“Hay una nube negra sobre él”

ESTELA DE CARLOTTO,

PRESIDENTA DE ABUELAS DE PLAZA DE MAYO, HABLO SOBRE EL PAPA

“Hay una nube negra sobre él”

“La Iglesia Católica argentina no ha dado ni un paso para colaborar con la verdad, la memoria y la justicia”, dijo Carlotto. Habló de las dificultades de las Abuelas para acercarse a la jerarquía eclesiástica y del caso De la Cuadra.

via Página/12 :: El país :: “Hay una nube negra sobre él”.

 

Conmemorarán al dramaturgo Reinaldo Arenas en FILPM

Conmemorarán al dramaturgo Reinaldo Arenas en FILPM

Cultura • 21 Febrero 2013 – 9:39pm — Notimex

El poeta cubano es uno de los más significativos del siglo XX, y será recordado el próximo 23 de febrero en el Palacio de Minería donde se abordará la trayectoria del autor en el 70 aniversario de su natalicio. inShare Imprimir Enviar por emailCiudad de México • El poeta y dramaturgo Reinaldo Arenas 1943-1990, uno de los escritores cubanos más significativos del siglo XX, será recordado el próximo sábado en la Feria Internacional del Libro del Palacio de Minería FILPM 2013.

via Conmemorarán al dramaturgo Reinaldo Arenas en FILPM.

Cuba Film Censorship Grip Loosens/ Variety

Cuba Film Censorship Grip Loosens

 

 

Cuba Film Censorship Grip Loosens

03.09.13 | 07:43AM PT

Digital distribution helps ease export problems

 

A new breed of filmmaker is emerging in Cuba, where travel restrictions to and from the U.S. have eased, allowing digital-savvy helmers — many of them alumni of the Gabriel Garcia Marquez-founded Escuela Internacional de Cine y TV (EICTV), which has spawned two generations of Latin American and Cuban filmmakers — to aim at a wider audience.

Helmer-scribe Alejandro Brugues’ zombie satire “Juan of the Dead” drew thousands of rabid filmgoers at its Havana Film Fest preem in 2011, and has been sold to 40 countries. Now he’s prepping his first English-lingo pic, to be shot in Cuba. Tentatively titled “The Wrong Place,” the pic tracks a retired thief who has been exiled to the island nation, with his dwindling funds motivating him to pull one more heist.

“Our government didn’t notice ‘Juan’ until it became successful, and then they realized they didn’t like it,” says Brugues, whose satire takes some sharp digs at the current state of affairs in Cuba. “They say censorship has loosened, but that’s not entirely true.”

National film org Instituto Cubano del Arte y la Industria Cinematograficos (ICAIC) wanted Havana’s December Festival of New Latin American Cinema to pull the plug on Carlos Lechuga’s feature debut “Melaza” (Molasses) for its political tone, says Brugues, who co-produced the drama. The pic is set against the closure of a sugar mill and the impact the shuttering has on a young couple. ICAIC, the sole distributor of Cuban pics on the communist island nation, has no intentions of releasing the pic, but Lechuga has been fielding offers from various fests, and has taken the film to Rotterdam. Next up is Miami, where it will have its U.S. debut.

Lechuga, who adapted another Havana Fest feature debut, Charlie Medina’s black-and-white “Penumbra,” based on the allegorical baseball play “Penumbra en el noveno cuarto” by Amado del Pino, is prepping a more mainstream project, “Vampires on Bicycles.” “Vampires” is set in the early 1990s, after the breakup of the Soviet Union, Cuba’s key trade partner and benefactor, plunged it into economic crisis. In Lechuga’s pic, the ensuing famine turns people into vampires. One of them converts a Yank Tank — slang for the vintage American cars that pepper Havana’s streets — into a taxi, and preys on his passengers.

One sign that the grip of censorship may be loosening somewhat is that helmer Daniel Diaz Torres’ wry comedy “La Pelicula de Ana,” (pictured) about an actress who pretends to be a prostitute in order to earn extra money, is being released by ICAIC, which backs just four to five nonfiction Cuban pics a year, as well as a handful of co-productions. At the Havana fest, the film took home prizes for screenplay and actress (for Laura de la Uz) and scored a distribution deal with Venezuela’s Amazonia Films.

Docus are also making headway in Cuba, but with subject matter seemingly more in line with the national agenda. Last year, says ICAIC senior adviser Luis Notario, the funder invested in 10 docs.

Standouts include Catherine Murphy’s short docu “Maestra,” a chronicle of Cuba’s groundbreaking 1961 literacy program that sent thousands of students and teachers into the countryside to teach peasants to read and write. Murphy, who was given access to ICAIC’s national film archives but leaned on private funding, uses archival footage and testimonies of women who participated in the program in their teens to recount the effort, which raised the national literacy rate to 96%. The docu has screened at some 30 film festivals worldwide.

“As a result of making this film, I found out that literacy is the biggest factor that determines the life expectancy of women in the world,” Murphy says.

Cuban women are also the focus of docu “The Cuban Wives” by Alberto Antonio Dandolo; the pic features the spouses of five Cubans imprisoned in the U.S. over espionage allegations.

Meanwhile, EICTV has grown into a breeding ground not only for Latin American filmmakers but also for film students from around the world, representing some 36 countries. Charging an annual tuition of €5,000 ($6,676), EICTV is arguably the most affordable film school in the world, says its director, Rafael Rosal.

Getting in, however, isn’t easy.

“We get 400 to 500 applications a year, of which 40 are accepted,” Rosal says. Lechuga, Diaz Torres and Brugues are former students; the latter two now mentors.

Mirtha Ibarra, the grand dame of Cuban cinema (“Strawberry and Chocolate,” “Guantanamera,” both helmed by her late husband Tomas Gutierrez Alea), is impressed with the nation’s fresh crop of talent.

“There’s a new generation of filmmakers making interesting films,” she says simply.

More here: Cuba Film Censorship Grip Loosens | Variety.

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