* Note written by Micaela Robles and Antonella Morello.
On Avenida Paseo Colón at 600, a cafe-restaurant preserves the Buenos Aires idiosyncrasy that exalts it as a powerhouse of creation and art. For more than 80 years in a room that used to function as a general store, between cups and chairs, intellectuals discussed their stories and novels, shared readings, danced milonga and tango, and today?
It is Saturday, April 15, after 5:00 p.m. Some of that history is breathed among the guests at the first Canas Film Festival of the worldan idea of the communicator Paz Varales, director of cinephileswhich together with the initiative old man bar they recover the preservation and enjoyment of these spaces so that nothing ever dies: not even who we will be, are or were; nor the cinema.
“I contacted Martina (who also celebrated her birthday between her opening speech), who manages this project very well, which focuses on giving life to these historic bars that need a lot of support and dissemination. I told him: —Do you like this idea of having a festival?” Paz tells in dialogue with Filo.news.
Martina, María Álvarez and Paz at the Canas Festival | Photo, credits: Ana Tonso.
“We did it together and here we are. We got together from Cinéfilos with Bar de Viejes and put together a program: many ladies, we invited characters from Buenos Aires because not only actors, directors and famous people, but it is a very Buenos Aires festival for us to celebrate the grandparents who are here, the stories that There are here in Buenos Aires, where you meet a hardware store owner, an American fair owner, a tailor, wonderful people who are very important to me, who make this city magical. We made shorts about them, and they’re all having their moment of fame. I find it beautiful,” she adds.
At the dawn of cinema: the paradox of a young festival dedicated to the passage of time
The Festival de Canas is the ancestry of the Festival de Canes, the first of this cinephile sequel that combined dogs and audiovisual productions, where, as Paz assures, “there are no antis or haters for now”, in reference to old age and furry. Both were born consecutively, and each at a festival.
“The idea arose in Mar del Plata, when the Cannes Film Festival was in production,” says its director, two months after the move to take over the Cannes event (which was born in Jujuy, at the Las Alturas Film Festival) is less than a month away from its 76th edition) and remove an “N” to give new meaning to its value and theme.
Canas Film Festival | Photo: Micaela Robles.
“Mar del Plata for me is a very overwhelming festival, very difficult to cover because there are millions of films. In the midst of all those premieres, I met Elena at the opening party. A lady who has been going for 50 years and has not missed any edition. There we said ‘her coverage is this: her experience, what it transmits to her, why at 92 she keeps coming back,’” Paz discovered.
Playing but at the same time craning, together with a friend they captured it by drawing on a napkin. “We finished the one in Canes, we said why not the one with gray hair?, I saw a couple of pending movies and we defined the programming”, he proposed.
The call brought together an age-diverse audience, which in turn contrasted the stereotypes associated with youth and old age: what exactly ages us and how much rejuvenates us? how do the ages coexist?
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Filo.news present at the Canas festival, together with Paz Varales and the tailor Jorge Williams | Photo, credits: Ana Tonso.
“I think that there is something of ‘che is going to reach us’, in a few years we are them, we are going to narrow the generation gap. There are ladies who need a plan to have a Saturday with friends. It was part of the objective to mix many young people in the call, ”says Paz.
“Las Cinéphilas” and the eternal magic of cinema
Cinema as a tool of transcendence. As an encounter of multiple solitudes. Like an immovable earring of the routine. This is how the retired women who show “Las cinéphilas” (2017), the film by Maria Alvarez that was exhibited in the afternoon of the first day of the Canas Festival.
From Spain, Argentina and Uruguay, the director portrayed what it means for them to go to the movies every day, their curiosity to learn new stories and open up new worlds. It is a sensitive and intimate film that is part of a trilogy dedicated to art and old age that was awarded and recognized at various festivals: “El tiempo perdido” (2020) -which focuses on reading- and “Las cercanas” ( 2021) -dedicated to music-.
Álvarez represents everyday characters –which inspired the idea of the festival– in the testimonies of women who go to the cinema so as not to wait, and that, like the sea, which some find in La Bristol is an existential experience, something that happens in that moment. Neither before nor after.
“The cinephiles”, by María Álvarez.
They evoke their memories, their collections, they look, they evoke fragments of the movies they saw, the locations where they were filmed, they tell what they are and do not want to be, and they quote. Like the fragment of Marcel Proust that states: facing the advance of time, memory is the only thing that remains fixed for each person.
After the screening of the film, the director answered questions and answers from the viewers, as a preview of the talk of the collective “La revolución de las viejas”, a movement that thinks about old age from a feminist and human rights perspective, and Carolina Anabella Iglesias, creator of the “Senes Personas Mayores” project that fights against discrimination against the elderly.
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Canas Film Festival | Photo: Micaela Robles.
On Sunday, the appointment was at Club Saber (Llerena 2727, Parque Chas) where it was the turn of the film “Foto Estudio Luisita” by Sol Miraglia and Hugo Manso, which tells the story of the photographer Luisita Escarria, who portrayed figures such as Tita Merello and Susana Giménez, Amelita Vargas a Olmedo, Porcel and Atahualpa Yupanqui.
Perfect assistance for cinephile passion: “From there, stop going”
“I am the lady Elena Basez, I am going to turn 92 in a month and I am very well”; with those words Elena introduces herself to Filo.news during the first day of the Canas Festival, or as she called it, “these beautiful festivals that are made about cinema”. And if there is something that she knows, it is this: she has perfect attendance at the Mar del Plata International Film Festival since 1954.
“I never imagined that I would have this reaction from people, from young girls, from students, they have behaved very well with me,” he thanked when he recalled his last meeting in “La feliz.” How did her love for cinema come about? Why dive every day between new stories?
“I went to a convent school, and every Sunday there was a movie for the children. My mom would take me and then they would pick me up. From there I liked the movies, I didn’t stop going,” recalls Elena and continues: “I stopped when my husband died, I hardly went anywhere for four years, but then yes, I toured Europe, Russia, many beautiful places, I’m very happy”; in fact, accompanied by her granddaughter, she saw the film “Las Cinéphilas” that was screened on the first day of the Canas Festival. “It’s very good, it explains quite well what the years are,” she said.
Elena with Jorge, present at the Canas Festival | Photo: Micaela Robles.
After all, cinema is that meeting space and passion that strengthens over time: “It is an apprenticeship, it is learning to talk, to see how people behave, when you grow up you see things that you did not imagine never, and that’s how he grew all his life with the cinema ”.
