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Veranada: a secluded gaucho lifestyle threatened by climate change

RIDM 2022 Screening - Photo/Lucia CASSAGNET

Without rain the grass doesn’t grow, and without it the sheep won’t make it through the winter

Veranada is a film highlighting a remote community in the mountains of Argentina. With the summer season coming to an end, the local shepherds have to relocate their flock of sheep, looking for water.

Malargüe, a city in the Argentinian state of Mendoza, is the home of Don Arturo, a lifelong shepherd. His lifestyle and that of a few other gauchos — the Argentinian version of the American cowboy — is threatened by the effects of climate change.

The 2020 rainfall season in the Andes mountains, which separate Argentina and Chile, marked the fifth consecutive year of below-average precipitations. Some hoped that El Niño would bring more wet days, but unfortunately, a dry spell looms ahead.

Without water, the various rivers that slide through the chain of mountains and valleys cannot supply all the communities and ranches.

At the end of the Veranada, the summer season for those who herd animals in the mountains, Don Arturo packed his limited belongings onto his horse and took his sheep someplace else, hoping to find a more suitable location to settle with the animals.

“I didn’t know going there that they were struggling with climate change, I realized very soon that they were. And it was a very big concern to them. Their way of life, as they see it, it’s kind of threatened,” explained producer and director of Veranada, Dominique Chaumont, after the screening of the film at the Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM).

Living a life that is as old as the country’s founding days, these gaucho communities have no other method of communication than a radio that is always turned on, transmitting messages between citizens from towns away.

From warnings of storms to seeking employment, to wishing a happy eightieth birthday to a father living in another town, the radio is the only thing that keeps the community connected with the outside world.

In the film, the simple tasks completed by the gauchos on a daily basis are shown through a series of long, patient still shots — some even being several minutes long. The narrative creates an immersive experience of this centuries-old way of living.

Filming in a town that exists outside of modernity brought a set of constraints to the three-people team that consisted of Chaumont’s project.

While working without electricity, living in a tent and navigating the mountains on horseback, the producer and her two companions had to pack wisely and lightly — something that the film’s protagonist does every day.

With only two cameras and two solar panels, they had to turn the cameras on only at specific times to ensure the best use of the battery.

In total, about seven and a half hours of footage were gathered in a span of three weeks, while the filmmakers lived alongside the gauchos, earning their trust.

Chaumont, a native of Mendoza, 300 kilometres away from Malargüe, discovered a way of life that most in her native country don’t even know about. She also discovered what it’s like to live on the brink of extinction.

“That was their concern, and that was their story. And I wanted to tell their story,” she said. 

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“Exploring Nature” at Montreal’s International Documentary Festival

RIDM’s 23rd edition showcases some of the best nature documentaries from the past year

The Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) kicked off its 23rd edition on Nov. 12, allowing filmgoers the opportunity to screen a wide variety of documentaries from the comfort of their own homes. The 2020 festival showcases some of the best documentaries from the past year and boasts a wide selection from all over the globe.

This year’s festival is divided into eight thematic categories, each available for a period of seven days. Among the first sections available for screening is “Exploring Nature,” an assortment of films about the environment and our complicated relationship with it. Here are just a few of the nature docs that caught my eye!

Watch The Concordian’s interview with Bruno Dequen, RIDM artistic director below.

Cenote (dir. Kaori Oda, Mexico/Japan, 2019)

Despite its presence at RIDM, Cenote is far from a conventional documentary. Director Kaori Oda is even reluctant to label her latest feature a film, instead referring to it as an “experimental documentary.” With its swirling, often disorienting camera work and its hypnotic auditory cues, “experimental” is certainly an apt descriptor, as Cenote is more akin to a sensory experience than anything else.

As its title suggests, the film examines cenotes; deep, natural sinkholes formed by collapsed limestone. Armed with an 8mm camera and an iPhone X, the Japanese filmmaker travels to Yucatan, Mexico to document the land’s many cavernous pits and explore their ties to the ancient Maya civilization. Opening text explains that Mayans saw cenotes as spaces of great spirituality, areas that connected present life with the afterlife. Ritualistic offerings in the form of human sacrifice were habitually presented to the Rain God Chaac, who Mayans believed lived at the bottom of the cenotes. Given this information, the cenotes develop an air of intrigue and Oda’s dreamlike and indistinct imagery paints them as something otherworldly and mythical.

 

Stray (dir. Elizabeth Lo, United States, 2020)

Stray opens to a quote by Greek philosopher Diogenes of Sinope which tells us that “Human beings…would do well to study the dog.” If unconvinced by this statement, one would only need to sit through the next 72 minutes to realize that there is indeed a lot to learn.

Stray documents the lives of several dogs living in the streets of Istanbul and Turkey, primarily focusing on a hazel-eyed canine named Zeytin. Zeytin wanders through the city in search of food and shelter, encountering numerous other strays and passersby along the way. Eventually, she is “adopted” by a group of teenage vagrants, all refugees living in similarly poor conditions.

What’s particularly striking about Lo’s film is how instantaneously we become invested in the plight of the animals. Stray appeals to our empathy at a very instinctual level; it doesn’t require any frills or embellishments to evoke an emotional response from its viewers.

As Zeytin roams the streets, she sees crowds gathered in protest, a couple arguing on a restaurant terrace, homeless men keeping warm by a barrel fire. She stares attentively. How much does she really understand? While the animal world lacks many of the intricacies of the human world, the film shows us that there is in fact a significant overlap found in our shared compassion, curiosity and desire for companionship.

 

Jiíbie (dir. Laura Huertas Millán, Colombia/France, 2019)

Jiíbie is a medium-length documentary that examines the cultivation and production of coca powder in the Amazonian community of Muina-Murui. Immediately, the film makes its purpose clear; “This is not a movie about cocaine,” a title card reads. For its many centuries of spiritual and ritualistic use by the native people of America, the coca plant cannot shake its reputation as the raw material from which the narcotic is extracted.

Jiíbie aims to dispel the many misconceptions associated with the plant by showing us the reverence it holds within these communities. In intimate detail, we watch as the Indigenous people of the Amazon crush, burn and mash the coca leaf into powder for spiritual purposes, all while listening to local stories and myths centered around the plant.

While it might not rid the leaf of its negative connotations, Jiíbie is still a powerful educational tool and a fascinating insight into the world of coca powder production.

 

Icemeltland Park (dir. Liliana Colombo, United Kingdom/Italy, 2020)

In a far-off future, nature is exploited to the point of no return. Unrestrained industrialization has led to the creation of an amusement park where attendees can watch the environment decay in real time. Sounds scary, right? This is the inventive premise behind Icemeltland Park, and sadly, Liliana Colombo’s dystopian vision is far too realistic for comfort. Colombo’s darkly satirical take on climate change takes us on a guided tour across the world to watch glaciers melt as part of a hypothetical theme park attraction.

The film is composed almost entirely of iPhone footage pulled from YouTube and runs with its clever framing device all the way to the very end. Included are “commercial breaks” and popup text that orders viewers to “please keep recording” despite the potential danger and implications of the horrific events unfolding. It’s a film that speaks to our indifference and general apathy towards climate change and how greed and spectacle triumph over the environment. Icemeltland Park ends with a foreboding warning that more natural catastrophes will come at the hands of climate change. An ominous message, but a necessary one, nonetheless.

The Montreal International Documentary Festival runs from now until Dec. 2. For more details including tickets and programming, please visit their website.

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In Homo Sapiens, life has become art on the silver screen

The film is composed of long takes of different structures humans have built.

Presented as part of the RIDM festival, the film examines architecture and space

Rarely can a filmmaker successfully tell a story without using any actors, dialogue or text. Yet, Austrian director Nikolaus Geyrhalter has taken on that challenge in his thought-provoking documentary, Homo Sapiens. The film tells humanity’s story through a series of images showing structures we have built and objects we have manufactured.

The beautifully shot documentary can arguably be described as more of an art film, as it requires audiences to surrender their minds and contemplate the meaning behind the images on screen.

Images of a McDonald’s restaurant, coupled with ones of a food processing plant strewn with decomposed animal carcasses, tell the story of a race that chose to industrialize food production. In order to produce cheap, ‘fast food’ for the masses, large numbers of animals need to be packed together to increase production.

An image of a landfill tells the story of a race that polluted its habitats by producing large amounts of waste to serve its consumer culture. Images of a library, a hospital and computer servers show a species that took the time to learn and invent better ways to communicate, heal and technologically evolve. The Image of a prison shows a vengeful race that chose to punish those who didn’t adhere to society’s laws.

Images of a tank, missiles and a battleship demonstrate an aggressive race that is at war, both for survival and domination over the other.  Images of a satellite show a curious species that looked to the stars to understand where they come from and discern whether they are alone in the universe.

Telling the story of humanity without using a single human being is a genuinely interesting experiment in storytelling. The genius of Homo Sapiens is that the images may not be interpreted the same way by individual audience members. For instance, when presented with images of a McDonald’s restaurant, will you think of a greedy corporation, of animal cruelty or of a delicious burger? When looking at images of a prison, will you think of justice being served or will you consider an exploited workforce that manufactures items for little to no pay? The infinite interpretations presents audience members with a meditative, introspective and unique movie-going experience—one rarely provided by the film industry.

That being said, a possible flaw with this piece of artistic expression could be the medium in which it is presented. By choosing to make a feature-length documentary, it is the filmmaker who determines the length of time audience members will be presented with each image and the total length of time audiences will spend at this cinematic ‘exhibition.’ The problem is that we don’t all experience artwork in the same way. When attending a museum exhibition, for instance, some people may choose to spend two minutes contemplating a piece of artistic expression, while others may spend 20 minutes. In the case of Homo Sapiens, many audience members to leave the theatre before the film was over. While Geyrhalter’s work may have been better suited for the halls of a museum than the big screen, the film is still an experience worth having.

Homo Sapiens was screened as part of the Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) on Nov. 20.

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Following a reporter on the front lines

Freelancer on the Front Lines follows Jesse Rosenfeld throughout his journey as a freelance journalist.

New documentary to be presented at the RIDM festival explores the challenges of being a journalist in areas of conflict

We as an audience are accustomed to receiving our news from a variety of readily available sources. Yet, behind that link on Facebook, those newspapers articles, and perfectly groomed television anchors, are journalists on the front lines who are making monumental efforts to gather information for us.

Freelancer on the Front Lines, a thoroughly informative film by Santiago Bertolino, tells the story of one such journalist. It follows freelance reporter Jesse Rosenfeld over a period of three years, as he travels through the volatile region of the Middle East in search of stories he believes need to be told.

The film starts off with an emotional farewell dinner hosted by Rosenfeld’s family before his departure from Toronto. His parents are rightfully worried about his upcoming journey to Cairo, where Rosenfeld hopes to make sense of General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s rise to power following the 2011 Arab Spring uprising in Egypt.

In some ways, his initial trip to Cairo is fitting with the film’s overall message. The general’s rise to power—in what was widely regarded as a sham election-—coincided with the detention of several journalists who attempted to cover the election. The sight of caged journalists, including Canada’s own Mohamed Fahmy, in an Egyptian courtroom, highlighted the importance of Rosenfeld’s work. Democracy cannot survive or flourish without a free press.

From Cairo, Rosenfeld goes on to cover the unrest in the West Bank, the Israel-Gaza conflict of 2014, the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and the ensuing refugee crisis. During his journey, he witnesses injustice and human atrocities ranging from the “apartheid road” in the West Bank to the mass executions in Gaza. He sees mass graves of ISIS victims in Iraq and the rotting corpses of ISIS fighters strapped to the cars of Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers. His work gave him a first-hand look at the heartbreaking experience of refugees. Covering such atrocities took a visible toll on the journalist, making his quest to tell these stories all the more admirable.

The film also sheds light on additional challenges faced by freelance journalists. Unlike those who travel on behalf of news organizations such as the BBC or CNN, freelance journalists face additional hurdles such as finding interpreters, guides and military escorts, as well as balancing their budget—which includes, but is in no way limited to, arguing with taxi drivers over cab fare. In addition to the emotional toll and physical danger faced by all journalists working in hostile environments, the film shows Rosenfeld’s constant struggle to convince editors to pick up and finance his stories. Yet, the tribulations seem worth it when the film shows a visibly proud Rosenfeld when he discovers that one of his articles is the top story of the day.

Overall, Bertolino does an excellent job at placing the audience in the trenches alongside Rosenfeld, aptly depicting the struggles of those who bring us news from the front lines.

The film concludes on somewhat of an optimistic note, as Rosenfeld explains his main motivation for doing what he does. The purpose of his work is to inspire his readers to take action against such atrocities, he said. Helping to prevent these stories from recurring or continuing is what he considers useful about his work.

Rosenfeld’s story certainly raises questions about the effect such journalistic work can have. If it weren’t for the work of journalists like Rosenfeld, would Western countries have taken in as many refugees as they did? Would the public have demanded an end to pointless wars, such as in Iraq, sooner, if more reporters like Rosenfeld had been on the front lines? Freelancer on the Front Lines certainly seems to suggest an answer.

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RIDM to screen Chantal Akerman’s last film

Last month, the world lost Chantal Akerman. The Belgian auteur is mainly known as a feminist and experimental artist, but she carefully avoided labels throughout her life—it is simply as a distinguished filmmaker that she will be paid tribute by the RIDM, Montreal’s International Documentary Festival. Her last film, No Home Movie, is not the kind of documentary that throws data at you or reads you a lecture. It’s a deeply personal and demanding video essay that presents you with images and words and rarely explains what the meaning behind them is. The subject of the film is the director’s mother, a Holocaust survivor who lived some of her last days in the presence of Akerman’s camera. By the time the film is over, her mother has passed away, which is, as many things in Akerman’s work, implicit—her voice gets deeper; her cough gets stronger; she becomes oblivious to her grown children’s pleas to tell them a story; and her apartment eventually empties itself of her. All of this is intercut with ambiguously long shots of nature. A four-minute shot of a tree in the wind opens the film. Another one, captured from a moving car’s window, shows a desertic landscape. What is Akerman trying to say? Is she commenting on the fact that her mother, from her cosy Brussels apartment, will never be able to witness these sights? No voiceover is provided, and the viewer is left on their own to reflect on how many mysteries died with both of these women. “Tell me, why are you filming me like that?” asks Akerman’s mother in one of their Skype conversations. “Because I want to show that there is no distance in the world,” answers Akerman. Her camera later zooms into her mother’s face as if that could help shorten the distance between them—they speak from different continents. Much of the film was shot at the mother’s home in Brussels, but the title should tell you that this is not what you’d call a home movie. The camera captures conversations, some involving Akerman, others without her, some inconsequential and barely audible, while others scratch the surface of the mother’s wartime trauma. This isn’t a home movie, and I’m not even sure that it’s cinema, but it expresses a daughter’s feelings for her mother in the way she intended it. If geographical distance has been in part vanquished through technology, death, concisely illustrated by a vacant space, cannot be helped. Or perhaps as long as a film exists, a person can live on, in a perpetual loop—there lived in Brussels a woman by the name of Natalia Akerman. As No Home Movie starts, she is alive. As it ends, she has passed away. One of the pleasures of a film is that it can be rewound. The RIDM runs from Nov. 12 to Nov. 22. No Home Movie will be screened at the Excentris Movie Theatre on Nov. 15 at 4 p.m. and Nov. 20 at 8 p.m.

The Montreal International Documentary Festival pays tribute to the late Belgian icon

Last month, the world lost Chantal Akerman. The Belgian auteur is mainly known as a feminist and experimental artist, but she carefully avoided labels throughout her life—it is simply as a distinguished filmmaker that she will be paid tribute by the RIDM, Montreal’s International Documentary Festival.

Her last film, No Home Movie, is not the kind of documentary that throws data at you or reads you a lecture. It’s a deeply personal and demanding video essay that presents you with images and words and rarely explains what the meaning behind them is.

The subject of the film is the director’s mother, a Holocaust survivor who lived some of her last days in the presence of Akerman’s camera. By the time the film is over, her mother has passed away, which is, as many things in Akerman’s work, implicit—her voice gets deeper; her cough gets stronger; she becomes oblivious to her grown children’s pleas to tell them a story; and her apartment eventually empties itself of her.

All of this is intercut with ambiguously long shots of nature. A four-minute shot of a tree in the wind opens the film. Another one, captured from a moving car’s window, shows a desertic landscape. What is Akerman trying to say? Is she commenting on the fact that her mother, from her cosy Brussels apartment, will never be able to witness these sights? No voiceover is provided, and the viewer is left on their own to reflect on how many mysteries died with both of these women.

“Tell me, why are you filming me like that?” asks Akerman’s mother in one of their Skype conversations. “Because I want to show that there is no distance in the world,” answers Akerman. Her camera later zooms into her mother’s face as if that could help shorten the distance between them—they speak from different continents.

Much of the film was shot at the mother’s home in Brussels, but the title should tell you that this is not what you’d call a home movie. The camera captures conversations, some involving Akerman, others without her, some inconsequential and barely audible, while others scratch the surface of the mother’s wartime trauma.

This isn’t a home movie, and I’m not even sure that it’s cinema, but it expresses a daughter’s feelings for her mother in the way she intended it. If geographical distance has been in part vanquished through technology, death, concisely illustrated by a vacant space, cannot be helped. Or perhaps as long as a film exists, a person can live on, in a perpetual loop—there lived in Brussels a woman by the name of Natalia Akerman. As No Home Movie starts, she is alive. As it ends, she has passed away. One of the pleasures of a film is that it can be rewound.

The RIDM runs from Nov. 12 to Nov. 22. No Home Movie will be screened at the Excentris Movie Theatre on Nov. 15 at 4 p.m. and Nov. 20 at 8 p.m.

 

 

 

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An evening with Gael García Bernal

Press photo

After the success of the Noam Chomsky event, the Concordia Student Union (CSU) had another trick up their sleeve — Mexican actor, director and producer, Gael García Bernal. Bernal’s career exploded after his debut in some of the most celebrated films in Mexico such as Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu’s Amores Perros and Alfonso Cuarón’s Y tu mama tambien.

Press photo

Bernal arrived for his first time in Montreal to present his latest documentary, Who is Dayani Cristal? at the 16th annual Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM). The film mixes documentary and fiction, in which Bernal retraces the steps of a Latin-American migrant found dead while traveling from Honduras to Arizona.

It was for this reason that the Concordia Student Union was asked to co-host the festival with RIDM to present Bernal as a guest-speaker.

“I was thrilled because the CSU really values the importance of documentary and art, especially when it’s used as a catalyst for social change,” said Caroline Bourbonniere, VP external and mobilization for the CSU.

Before delving into a discussion of social change through documentary, Bernal recounted his own personal journey.

“I was always working with my parents in their plays, but I think a key moment came when I was 14, 15, during [the] Zapatista uprising in Chiapas and [it] changed my perspective completely,” he said.

By 19 years of age, Bernal was a Mexican soap opera heartthrob, but he left Mexico to study acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. After running out of money in 3 weeks, Bernal had to take odd jobs in bars and restaurants.

“I thought I would never be an actor, I thought I’d act as a hobby … I wanted to see myself as a pediatrician.”

Yet it was while he was a student in London that Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu approached him for Amores Perros.

When it comes to defining who he is as an individual, even after all his acclaimed success, the answer does not come easy.

“Even at this age, I don’t know who I am. It’s more direct for me to say who I am going to be, rather than who I am because who I am is [not] static, I’m losing it at every second,” Bernal said.

Shining a light on how fortunate Canadians are to get government funding for creating films, Bernal expressed how important the notion of not having to return that money allows artists to expand on their own identity.

“Our films will be more transcendent when they are completely free,” explained Bernal.

That’s why the actor is the co-chair of Ambulante, the travelling documentary film festival, whose worldwide mission is to promote and fundraise Mexican documentaries.

“We need to talk about our reality and building our identity for ourselves. So this documentary film festival started to become this big thing in open air.”

Bernal also has a connection to Concordia, taking on the role of Mazier Bahari, in the upcoming film Rosewater, directed by John Stewart. Maziar Bahari is the Canadian journalist and Concordia Alumni who was arrested in 2009 by the Iranian government and accused of being an American spy.

Find out more about Who is Dayani Cristal? at http://whoisdayanicristal.com

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