Karen Ponzio Photo
Velapatino, Caicedo, Tortora, Atehortua, and Diaz Costa.
Two Colombian films, both made of film fragments, gave audiences insight into the history of not only the country, but cinema itself, as the Latino and Iberian Film Festival at Yale (LIFFY) held its third night of screenings.
In its 15th year, the festival — which runs Nov. 4 to Nov. 10 — has over 40 films from 16 countries shown both virtually and in person as well as panel discussions and Q&A sessions to offer attendees, all of which are free and open to the public.
Founder and executive director Margherita Tortora greeted attendees in the lobby of 53 Wall St. full of smiles and vivacious energy. She said the festival’s in-person screenings had begun on Monday night with Borderland: the Line Within, a film made in the U.S. by Pamela Yates that explores the border industrial complex that she said is a “huge business.” The film examines both the actual border and “the line within people.” Tortora noted that attendance was “really good” but had been less on Tuesday night for the Spanish films they screened, possibly due to it being Election Night. Many of the filmmakers who had events on other nights would be attending other events as well. On Wednesday evening, two filmmakers from Peru, Jenny Velapatino and Rossano Diaz Costa, who will be screening their films on Sunday, were present.
Wednesday saw the screening of one short film, Lamentos by Gerylee Polanco Uribe and Camilo Aguilera Toro, and one feature, Mudos Testigos, a.k.a. Silent Witnesses, by Luis Ospina and Jeronimo Atehortua. After the films there was a Q&A with Atehortua, moderated by writer/cultural promoter/social activist Rosario Caicedo, who had previously been a social worker in New Haven Public Schools and is a jury member for this year’s festival.
LIFFY 2024 programs.
Tortora welcomed everyone and introduced Atehortua, who made the audience aware that his first film was also Ospina’s last film, which Atehortua was left in charge of completing after Ospina’s passing.
“It’s all about our memory,” said Atehortua.
Caceido — a native of Cali, Columbia — then came forward and spoke about the first film, noting that it was “also like a collage,” like the second one, and that both films displayed the “wonderful and magical history of Cali and the tragedy of Cali.”
Lamentos began with information about how its documentary pieces were filmed in 1990s Cali and were all recorded analog. As a building crumbled, a T.S. Eliot quote appeared in both Spanish and English: “This is how the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper.” Soon, we are witness to the destruction of Cali by picks and jackhammers, backhoes and bulldozers. Narrators tell us about what was and what will no longer be, and how “the progress has attacked the landscape.”
“I feel evicted from my memories,” one narrator says after a pool is seen unused, water still and clouded, while over it a film is juxtaposed with people enjoying it at another time in the past.
In between the debris and the narration there are a few cutaways to a man saying “what is that lament of yours?” The laments end up being similar: “there are no pretty places left” and “they cannot stand to see landscape.” One ends up longing to also see what was there before, what the narrators cannot show us any longer. There is the juxtaposition of memory and nostalgia, something we all tend to grapple with, and the overlay and editing of the film added another level to that discourse. Though the film is only about 20 minutes long, its layering of sound and vision leave a lasting impact.
The second film also begins with an Eliot quote and is made up of film fragments, these being from silent films made in Colombia in the 1920s. Re-edited to create a new narrative, the fictional story of Efrain and Alicia, who begin a secret love affair behind the back of Alicia’s fiancé Uribe, the story has the subtitle “Melodrama in Three Acts.”
The film uses a tinting of colors such as blue, sepia, red, and green during different sequences — their meanings later explained by Atehortua — and dialogue that appears in Spanish with English subtitles. The film has romance and intrigue, and gives the viewer insight into the politics and culture of that particular place and time. One is easily entranced by the storyline and transported into a specific historical moment. It is a piece of cinema made by and for lovers of cinema, using important artifacts combined with an experimental vision to create a film wholly unique unto itself.
Atehortua and Caceido in conversation.
Afterward Caceido asked Atehortua how the project came about. Atehortua spoke of how he and Ospina met at a film festival, and how at another meeting at another festival, Ospina talked of wanting to make a film without shooting a single image, with Atehortua being the producer. Ospina had made Atehortua promise to finish the film if anything happened to him, so when Ospina died in the early stages of filmmaking that’s exactly what Atehortua did.
“He believed that cinema is first,” said Atehortua. “A way to fight against death is finishing the work.”
He also spoke of how he did not restore the images; he only scanned them, which left them in their natural state.
“You need to experience the actual state of the footage, experience the history,” he said. Calling what others might call the damage and defects of the film the “wounds,” he added: “through the wounds you can have the experience.”
Atehortua also took questions form the audience about the color tinting, the music, the symbolic use of fire in the film, and being inspired by some of Ospina’s belongings that were given to him by Ospina’s wife after he died.
Caceido, who was friends with Ospina, also commented about him appearing in the short film and how he spoke to her before he died about “making creation out of destruction.”
“He was thinking about it all, the silent images that talked so much,” she said.
The discussion and the films highlighted the importance of film as historical and cultural reference. All were a big hit with attendees. I highly recommend getting off of your electronic devices and checking out this dazzling array of films and perspectives being offered from all over the Spanish-speaking world. You have four more days to do so, and bonus: there’s an awards ceremony and reception on Sunday with food and music. ¡Viva la cinema!
All LIFFY 2024 events are free and open to the public, though virtual screenings do require registration. More information including a full program with times, locations, and film synopsis are available at the LIFFY website.