Ana y los otros (Ana and the others), Celina Murga, Argentina, 2003, 80 minutes
Ana is twenty years old and lives in Buenos Aires. Trying to escape from a city devastated by the crisis, she returns after several years of absence to her home town of Paraná, in the province of Entre Ríos. There she looks for a new opportunity, although her sensations are a strange mixture of belonging and feeling uprooted. The trip will mean the chance to meet former schoolmates again. And also to meet new people, rethink her life and try to change her future. In Paraná an old boyfriend, Mariano, also reappears, and will be the trigger for another trip and another search for Ana.
The director Celina Murga has always cited two references for her film: the first part is closely related to the films of Eric Rohmer – disconnected scenes, casual encounters, a certain drift of the character, conversations about love and about life – while the second part, in contrast, follows a clear course of action and its structure attempts to get closer to the mood of the protagonist, in the way that Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami sometimes works.
The film won the special jury prize at the Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival of 2003. It also received a special mention from the jury in the critics’ week of the Venice Festival of 2003.
Ana is twenty years old and lives in Buenos Aires. Trying to escape from a city devastated by the crisis, she returns after several years of absence to her home town of Paraná, in the province of Entre Ríos.