Launched under the motto “The rebirth of splendor,” the 2025 Mar del Plata International Film Festival had set a bar pretty high for itself as directors aimed to make the most of Argentina’s top film event on its 40th birthday. The balance, however, shows that they struggled to live up to the hype.
Organizers admitted to stalled audience numbers and the absence of high-profile international guests, adding to their public frustration over budget limitations and complaints about of lack of support from local authorities. In its second year under new management, the results, similar to what happened last year, show that Latin America’s only A-class festival is still trying to find its footing.
It should be said that the festival still has the possibility of regaining the sparkle the directors claim to pursue. But just like nature abhors a vacuum, film lovers will look elsewhere for what they want until that happens. In this case, they have cast their gaze literally down the road to a grassroots event organized by young film professionals that is gaining ground.
Meet Fuera de Campo (Spanish for “Off frame”). Created last year as a response to the subsidy slashing carried out by Argentina’s film institute INCAA, it was described as “a political action to defend Argentine cinema.” In 2025, they showed that the alternative scene is alive and well. And the audience is responding.
Every morning, dozens of young film fans waited in line for the Enrique Carreras theater’s box office to open at 10 a.m. The exhibit had no online purchasing system, which meant that they had to queue the old-school way to buy the tickets for the films playing that day (this year, they featured a selection of both new and classic Argentine films).
The event was not only about celebrating cinema. Every night following the last showing at midnight, an underground club on the same block welcomed both organizers and film goers for karaoke and dancing.
A storied festival on the ropes
Created in 1954, Mar del Plata film festival is the region’s only film festival sharing the same credentials as Cannes, Venice, and Berlin. After a glamorous early run with top-tier guests that ranged from Paul Newman to François Truffaut and Pier Paolo Pasolini, it was halted in 1970 and revived in 1995.
The festival weathered the Menem era’s flashy but thin programming and the turmoil of Argentina’s 2001 crisis before stabilizing with strong lineups over the past 20 years: from major international guests like Catherine Deneuve, Jeremy Irons, Viggo Mortensen, and Juliette Binoche, to lively social events, it created a loyal audience of locals and film buffs from all over the country.
In their second year as co-directors, Gabriel Lerman and Jorge Stamadianos — appointed under President Javier Milei’s administration in 2024 — promoted the festival with a “restoration” narrative that eerily echoed the Trump-era idea of returning something to its past glory, illustrated by the slogan “make America great again.”
While the runaway inflation of the last Peronist government had indeed affected the event’s budget, its artistic identity remained relatively unscathed. Whatever lost “splendor” the organizers were referring to was never quite clear. And while this 40th festival went on without any major setbacks, that so-called “rebirth” — at least in terms of audience numbers, something the organizers stressed was important — was nowhere to be seen.
“It’s the same number as last year. That’s not an accomplishment,” said Carlos Pirovano head of the National Film Institute (INCAA) and a staunch proponent of Milei’s austerity policies, on Radio Brisas.
“Topping that would have been the actual accomplishment,” he added.
Lerman complained about finding relatively empty theaters after all the effort that was put into getting some of the films in the program. “Whenever I go into a theater screening a great film and there are few people or it’s not packed, I get frustrated,” he said to Radio Brisas.
The Herald witnessed some of these episodes. The first Saturday night screening of Richard Linklater’s Cannes entry Nouvelle Vague — a program highlight — drew a rather large audience. The landmark Auditorium Theater, which usually fills up in high-profile showings, however, never did.
Another case was the premiere of Nueve Auras, a documentary about late Argentine director Fabian Bielinsky’s hugely popular films Nueve reinas and El aura. Despite featuring Argentine star Ricardo Darín (and leading actor in both movies), the showing also drew a rather small audience.
Both Pirovano and Lerman also expressed frustration over the city government’s weak support for street advertising, which was indeed mostly absent in Mar del Plata’s downtown area.
“A lot of people were not aware that there is a good thing happening here, they are missing it,” Lerman said. Neither the film selection itself, which lacked major titles from European festival, nor the steep rise in ticket prices compared to last year, were apparently considered potential factors for the drop in attendance.
Although most established local actors and film professionals had publicly denounced the current INCAA administration for its severe cuts to film funding, some high-profile artists did travel to the city to support their films. Among them were actor Diego Peretti — who co-directed Muerte de un comediante — and trap singer Cazzu, cast alongside Peretti in Risa y la cabina del viento.
Yet none of the international stars organizers were working to get — from Jennifer Lopez to Harvey Keitel to Sarah Snook — actually made the trip. The new directors’ decision to move the festival’s dates to avoid overlapping with Thanksgiving — supposedly an obstacle to securing U.S.-based talent — didn’t seem to help.
Lerman’s mention of the long flights to Argentina and Mar del Plata’s “poor connection” doesn’t hold water for a festival that has flown in global stars, from directors Bong Joon Ho and James Gunn to Willem Dafoe and Greta Gerwig.
Budget issues, on the other hand, are a more realistic explanation. Mar del Plata’s funding is minuscule compared to San Sebastián or Venice (according to Lerman himself put it, their budget currently stands at 1/20 of the European ones). This means they cannot cover requirements made by Hollywood stars, or afford screening fees for the hottest titles from other festivals.
At least for now, it doesn’t appear like this can be fixed by the festival’s main financier. INCAA announced earlier this year that it had reversed the institution’s longtime deficit thanks to austerity measures, which included massive layoffs and drastic cuts to funding for film productions, schools, and events.
Argentine films, meanwhile, are easier (and cheaper) to obtain. In 2025 several of them premiered in top festivals around the world. But while Mar del Plata used to work as an opportunity for such films to have a local premiere, this year most of them — like Alejo Moguillansky’s Pin de Fartie, or Milagros Mumenthaler’s Las corrientes — chose a different venue: cue Fuera de Campo.
A stronghold for Argentine cinema Previously known as Contracampo — the name of an old section of the Mar del Plata film festival dedicated to independent cinema — Fuera de Campo is a non-profit event organized by young Argentine filmmakers, producers, and critics. From November 6 to 11, it runs during the same dates as the festival (November 6 to 16.)
In 2025, the exhibit hosted a handful of daily screenings of Argentine films at the Enrique Carreras Theater, just a few blocks away from the festival’s headquarters.
According to its organizers, the exhibit filled an average 80% of its screenings, about 6000 people in total (the theater sits 300). The event is generating a strong sense of community among the mostly young audience while also attracting Mar del Plata film festival attendees, who try and squeeze Fuera de Campo screening into their schedule.
As it gains momentum while struggling with lack of funding, the event is emerging as both a hub of political resistance within the Argentine film community and a seedbed for emerging filmmakers. In addition to some of the most anticipated Argentine independent films of the year, they projected short films from young directors.
The event’s aura also grew due to packed late-night showings of Argentine films from the 1940s in 16mm and 35mm prints — hosted by film collector and former Mar del Plata festival director Fernando Martín Peña.
Fuera de Campo also hosted a series of public conversations on the state of the film community’s connection with the audience, the film institute and film professionals. One of them included director and scriptwriter Mariano Llinás, who co-wrote Oscar-nominated Argentina, 1985 and directed the 14-hour independent cult film La Flor.
“This marginal, independent space is much more interesting than what’s on the other side,” he said, insisting that the very independent nature of the event is its biggest asset, dismissing profitability as the motivator for filmmaking.
Organizers have just announced a smaller Fuera de Campo event — showing 6 films — to be held in December in Villa La Angostura, Neuquén province. And while the initiative remains a rather small enclave, there’s something about the sheer will of its organizers and the power of having a clear political intention that could develop it into a fully grown film festival.
They are not without bravado. And, judging from the way they described the Mar del Plata festival in an official statement, also not without a bit of snark: “We believe that splendor is having a festival that doesn’t leave out its local film industry.”