A King and His Movie

On a chaotic Friday in Buenos Aires, Alma and Roberto meet in the pouring rain. In the middle of the traffic chaos, the door of Alma's car opens. Roberto gets in, injured and wet to the bones. "Please close the door! As soon as this is all over, I'm getting out." Without knowing why, Alma does what Roberto asks her to do. They have no idea that this sudden and unexpected encounter will change their lives. Alma made aimless rounds in the city in her car before, and Roberto wanted to find himself. None of them know what to do or how to progress in their lives. Alma and Roberto - excellently played by Valeria Bertuccelli and Ernesto Alterio - are people like all of us, vulnerable and therefore grow close to our hearts.

To celebrate the centenary of Jorge Luis Borges' birth, Tristán Bauer has created a very stimulating film essay: Skilfully, respectfully and poetically, he mixes archive documents, conversations and photographs of the writer's life, which reflect Borges' political stance, his problems with the Perón regime and his international successes. Tristán Bauer does not limit himself to a historian's work, he subtly reconstructs the writer's world: infinite fountains of the strange library of Babel, numerous corridors, circles, mirrors, stairs and hexagons.

This documentary is a poetic journey to the unique music of the Argentine maestro Eduardo Falú (1923 - 2013). At the same time it is a vivid portrait of this outstanding musician. Starting from his particular relationship with the landscapes of northwestern Argentina, with his beloved hometown Salta, with the vast plains of the Pampa, the enormous mountains of the Andes with their dramatic canyons, fertile valleys and deserted high plateaus, the film follows the manyfold stations of Falús life and career.

After the fall of the military dictatorship in 1983, successive democratic governments launched a series of reforms purporting to turn Argentina into the world's most liberal and prosperous economy. Less than twenty years later, the Argentinians have lost literally everything: major national companies have been sold well below value to foreign corporations; the proceeds of privatizations have been diverted into the pockets of corrupt officials; revised labour laws have taken away all rights from employees; in a country that is traditionally an important exporter of foodstuffs, malnutrition is widespread; millions of people are unemployed and sinking into poverty; and their savings have disappeared in a final banking collapse. The film highlights numerous political, financial, social and judicial aspects that mark out Argentina's road to ruin.

This film is about the degraded socio-economic condition of Argentina leading to the December 2001 rebellions, and its consequent social chaos analyzed by focusing on real people from Buenos Aires poorest shantytowns, crumbling hospitals, and women middle class farmers fighting multi national banks that are shamelessly appropriating their farmlands.