Artículo escrito por Juan Daniel para el diario Daily Tiger del Festival de Rotterdam. / Article by Juan Daniel written for IFFR’s Daily Tiger.
I’m not going to talk about La teta asustada (The Milk of Sorrow) nor a Peruvian film industry, which by the way doesn’t exist. There’s money involved, as filmmakers and, of course, films, but none of these belong to or are part of us. We don’t have an identity as we don’t have a home nor fathers. The only thing that unites some of us is being film industry rejects that haven’t given up the biological need of making films.
After Claudia Llosa’s over valuated 2009 Berlinale victory, many politicians started to get immersed in the dark areas of our national film fund, CONACINE. Many are asking for more money as if it could be the solution to our problems, when many of the youngest and most promising directors have been left out of what seems to be a self -denominated V.I.P. party.
Is a national institution supposed to fund a filmmaker’s whole career? Isn’t it sad that someone with more than thirty years making films keeps applying to funds made for filmmakers that are still waiting for a chance? Shouldn’t we start to worry if our only feature film festival and CONACINE, belonging to a third world reality, don’t support small digital productions?
This format elitism is what disturbs me the most of the present of film, as if the size of canvas or the chosen technique differences a painting from a doodle. Anyone that is in the filmmaking business knows that the budget of a celluloid production could afford at least the making of two digital films. The procedure to solve this problem would be really easy in a society led by common sense: instead of having a national fund with five expensive rewards, reduce that number and add a strictly digital fund for low budget projects so you could at least double the number of winners.
Unfortunately, common sense isn’t a characteristic of Peruvian corrupted systems. It’s actually easier to create a new and autonomous system, than to fix the existent. The rejects and orphans are coming together, digital is no longer a celluloid wannabe, and the narrow-minded third world thematic is no longer a weapon for achieving European recognition. Something we’ve learned from the Philippine digital phenomenon is that new information democracy makes us able to create new expressions of cinema rather than copying first world aesthetics.
