Las cinéphilas, María Álvarez, Argentina, 2017, 70mins
This film is a gift, which is why we wanted to schedule it at this time of year as a tribute to our audience, as a tribute to our own cinema's cinephiles.
We always like to think about the films that will open and close the year in Tabakalera. It is a gesture and a choice that reflects a lot of what we want to say as programmers. And in this case we were very clear about it. Which of all the films – of the hundreds of films that we have seen this year in the festivals – seemed the most special to give to our audience as a present? The answer is this one, the first feature documentary by the Argentine director María Álvarez.
How is it that no one has ever offered a tribute as moving as this to the world's cinema audiences? How many times have we asked ourselves about the lives of these cinemagoers? Who they are? Where do they live? What have their lives been like? What do they do before and after the sessions? What are they looking for in the cinema and what do they find on the screen that makes them come back again and again, again and again.
The cinephiles of the title are Estela, Paloma, Norma, Chelo, Lucía and Leopoldina, retired women from Argentina, Spain and Uruguay who go to the cinema every afternoon. And behind that act of “going to the cinema” lies a whole treatise about life, cinema and fiction; about the passage of time; about dreams; about the past and the future; and about memory.
Winner of the Audience Award at the BAFICI, the Independent Film Festival of Buenos Aires and the Audience Award at the OUFF, the Ourense International Film Festival. It is one of those films where you will be moved and find yourself applauding at the end of the screening.
This film is a gift, which is why we wanted to schedule it at this time of year as a tribute to our audience, as a tribute to our own cinema's cinephiles.