TIFF - City to City

CITY TO CITY: BUENOS AIRES

“This year City to City will introduce a new generation of auteurs to audiences in Toronto.”

— Cameron Bailey, Co-Director of the Toronto International Film Festival

“There’s a rich array of cinematic styles emerging across Buenos Aires, from more experimental narratives to sly genre reworks, and we’re excited to bring a sampling of that diversity to TIFF.” — Kate Lawrie Van de Ven, City to City Programmer.

Every year during the Toronto International Film Festival, City to City explores the urban experience, highlighting the best in emerging cinematic talent in a particular locale. This third edition focuses on Buenos Aires, one of the world’s largest agglomerations and of its most culturally diverse.

Buenos Aires’ inhabitants, the porteños, are composed by centuries-old yet still heady mix of European, Asian and Middle-Eastern immigrants alongside a native South American community. More recently, the city’s status as an emergent cultural hot spot and the competitive cost of living has also resulted in a new wave of immigration –– from neighbouring South American nations and around the world –– since the 2000s. The city’s diverse cultural makeup and the dizzying variety of its forty-eight distinctive districts –– the barrios –– place it in a constant identity flux. Furthermore, it is in an advance state of transition, coping with (and to some degree thriving from) an explosive urbanization process that is transforming the city’s skyline and constantly increasing its population.

As Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires has long been in a pivotal role relative to the rest of the nation, communicating the country’s identity to the global arena, standing as the seat of its governments and serving as the battleground on which opposing ideologies have clashed. All the while it has maintained its urban profile as a city of café culture, rabid soccer fans, cosmopolitan chic and, of course, tango. It has also remained the epicenter of the Argentine filmmaking industry and the graffiti-adorned garden in which the various phases of the New Argentine Cinema has flowered since the 1990s when filmmakers and film students protested in the streets for greater government support for their medium. Festival audiences are familiar with the distinctive works of Pablo Trapero, Lucrecia Martel and Lisandro Alonso, trailblazers who have powered Argentina’s new cinematic movement since its inception. However, the country’s feverish economic recovery since its collapse in 2001 and Buenos Aires’ renewed prominence on the world cultural map have encouraged an entirely new phase of growth in the industry. The combination of low production costs and a diverse, passionate artistic community with a penchant for perseverance has made Buenos Aires a hub of creativity.

City to City: Buenos Aires showcases 10 feature-length films that will introduce audiences to a newly inspired generation of Argentine filmmakers. The array of perspectives in the programme speaks strongly of the dynamic film scene in the city, it showcases a rich array of cinematic styles and idioms that tackle topics ranging from questions of personal identity and happiness; to national political history; to meta-critical takes on the city’s booming film industry itself.

Additionally, TIFF is pleased to present the return of the City to City symposium, a thought-provoking dialogue between the visiting city’s filmmakers and experts on urban culture. This year’s panel, “Buenos Aires – A Conversation,” will take place on Tuesday, September 13-6:30pm at TIFF Bell Lightbox, and will be open to the public. Admission is free. Further details on featured panelists and invited guests below.