One or Two Questions [2018]

 The wave of military dictatorships that spread through Latin America during the 20^th century, competed with one another on state-sponsored repression, human rights abuses, extra-judicial punishments, and most notably, enforced disappearances. The one that ruled Uruguay for over a decade – it began with the 1973 coup d'état and brutal crackdown on the Marxist-Leninist Tapamaros, and finally ended in 1985 following massive demonstrations and strikes – was no less draconian. Hence, when an amnesty law was passed by the government in 1986, shielding the armed forces from prosecutions, it inevitably led to widespread protests by the civil society and human rights groups against it, which ultimately paved the way for a country-wide referendum in 1989. This remarkable 4-hour-long documentary – shot between 1987 and 1989 on the streets of Montevideo and neighbouring towns and villages; and finally released nearly 3 decades later – provided a rare glimpse of the wheels of democracy and the voice of journalism in action as the event, and associated political forces, unfolded. Two journalists, María Barhoum and Graciela Salsamendi, interviewed multiple everyday folks for Swiss television – both those favouring the amnesty, for reasons ranging from fascist beliefs, apologia and apathy to underlying fear of fresh retributions, and those steadfastly opposing it – and the recorded footage was edited by globetrotting Swiss documentarian Kristina Konrad into this 4-hour-long reportage on the shifting meanings of “peace” and “justice”, and a nuanced investigation into political trauma, anger and amnesia. The interviews were interspersed with electoral television commercials from that period, which added ironic qualities to the engrossing audio-visual collage. The docu remains part of an ever-growing pantheon of powerful Latin American political documentaries and films connected by their shared refusal to forget.

Director: Kristina Konrad

Genre: Documentary/Essay Film/Political History/Reportage

Language: Spanish

Country: Uruguay

A Useful Life (La Vida Útil) [2010]

While cinephilia can have diverse hues and forms, nostalgia for a lost way of life has usually been a connecting thread – from the rapturous Goodbye, Dragon Inn and the sultry Miss Lovely to the sentimental Cinema Paradiso and the sensuous The Dreamers. Federico Veiroj aimed his lens on the cloistered and fast disappearing world of film societies and curators in his deadpan, exquisitely metatextual, quietly charming, deceptively low-key, and elegiac A Useful Life. Jorge (Jorge Jellinek, a film critic himself) is a shy, reclusive, portly man who’s been working for 25 years at Montevideo’s Cinemateca Uruguaya – a once revered institution that’s now struggling due to dwindling participation. He manages everything in a good day’s work – sifting through DVD submissions with his boss (played by former Cinematica head Manuel Martínez Carril), planning a Manoel de Oliveira retrospective, preparing scholarly radio clips on discourses over Eisenstein’s use of Prokofiev’s music and Citizen Kane’s structure, changing reels and providing dubbing during screenings, cataloguing archives, discussing operational priorities during meetings, greeting arthouse patrons and independent filmmaker, seeking contributions, and even checking the cushioning of seats. However, his insular life collapses when the cinematheque's financial backers pull the plug, leading to both wryly melancholic existential crises, including over something as banal as crossing the streets or getting a haircut, and an exuberant attempt – in a cheeky expression of life imitating art – at going on a movie date with a law professor (Paola Venditto). In a hilarious moment, he even quotes from Mark Twain’s essay on the art of lying to a bemused audience. And, the film’s delightful self-reflexivity wasn’t just limited to the actors, as Veiroj himself was once employed with the Uruguayan Cinematheque.

Director: Federico Veiroj
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama
Language: Spanish
Country: Uruguay