\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t Like a sort of godfather of Argentine independent filmmaking, Ra\u00fal Perrone is considered a pioneer of the New Argentine Cinema that emerged in the 1990s. Always set in the Buenos Aires suburb Ituzaing\u00f3, his guerrilla-style productions put emphasis on using a single camera, direct sound, first takes, the smallest crew possible, few days of shooting, black and white cinematography, and a motto that ends his celebrated Decalogue: \u201cAlways finish the movie, no matter what.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Perrone began filming, in 1989, he was already recognized as a talented caricaturist for newspapers and magazines. As a fan and advocate of the video format that was much more accessible than celluloid, he soon became a cult hero, making movies at an astounding pace \u2014 an average of three movies each year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ten years later, when the city of Buenos Aires organized the first edition of the Buenos Aires independent film festival BAFICI, Perrone was invited to premiere his film Zapada. Since then, his films have been programmed in almost every edition, and this year he will receive a special prize for his career. The 74 year-old artist will also present his latest effort Cin3fili4, along with P3rron3 \u00edntimo, a book that unifies his passion for cinema with his talent as a caricaturist.<\/p>\n
While proud of his lifetime achievement award, he admitted to the Herald that he told BAFICI director Javier Porta Fouz that he needed a week to decide whether to accept it. Still, he highlights being one of the directors who has attended the festival the most times. \u201cI must have missed only two or three festivals,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Regarding the premiere of Cinefilia, Perrone describes his latest work as \u201ca film about three young guys who are huge cinema fans.\u201d And adds: \u201cLove comes into play, because love always appears in my films.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perrone will also be in every screening of Bafici: a short fragment of a long interview with him will play before every film. Such use of interviews with established directors has become a tradition of the festival, which in previous years has featured filmmakers such as Edgardo Cozarinsky and Manuel Ant\u00edn.\u00a0<\/p>\n
About the book, he confides that it includes \u201cmany phrases that reflect my way of thinking about cinema, plus a long interview with movie critic Roger Koza.\u201d<\/p>\n
Difficult to pigeon-hole Diversity in styles and themes has always been a distinctive trait of Perrone\u2019s filmography. His dozens of films have included trilogies, like the twentysomething angst of Labios de churrasco, Graciadi\u00f3 and 5 p\u2019al peso, the tender portrait of his in-laws in Late coraz\u00f3n, La Mecha and La Navidad de Ofelia y Galv\u00e1n, the suburban feel of Luj\u00e1n, Los actos cotidianos and Al final la vida sigue igual, plus the skateboard & hip-hop characters of Bonus track and P3nd3jo5.<\/p>\n
He usually prefers non-professional actors, and in earlier works favored casts with popular Argentine rock stars like Andr\u00e9s Calamaro (Esquina Corrientes), Adri\u00e1n D\u00e1rgelos (No seas cruel and Graciadi\u00f3), Iv\u00e1n Noble (the Graciadi\u00f3 trilogy), and Adri\u00e1n Otero (the unreleased No seas cruel miniseries).\u00a0<\/p>\n
When he did include famous TV and film stars \u2014 like Fabi\u00e1n Vena, Mariana Arias, Gabriel Goity, Jean-Pierre Noher, Gast\u00f3n Pauls, Roly Serrano and even director Cozarinsky and folk protest singer Piero \u2014 he casted them in an almost unrecognizable roles.<\/p>\n
His more experimental works include subtle tributes to Pasolini, references to Italian master Caravaggio and even Impressionist painters, miniature cardboard sets, Dreyer\u2019s landmark Joan of Arc (1571-1610), and the use of primitive cameras.<\/p>\n
During the Covid lockdown, he refused to stay inactive. He made 4lgunxs pibxs using outtakes and shot 4tro v3int3 remotely, giving indications to his crew through videocalls and Whatsapp. Truly unstoppable.<\/p>\n
And though he hates travelling and never attended a film festival abroad, his films have reached many of them, winning prizes at Cuenca, Fribourg and Viennale, plus a tribute at Oxford University in 2024.<\/p>\n
More plans for 2026 As usual, Perrone is already editing a new film and shooting another one. He will begin a new stint of his 26-year long free workshop at the municipality of his beloved home Ituzaing\u00f3, where he also directs the Ituzaing\u00f3 International Film Festival. More than 300 students have enrolled in his workshop.<\/p>\n
\u201cI find it quite crazy that younger and younger people keep coming,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
This year, Perrone is planning a retrospective with his producer Pablo Ratto and distributor Manuel Garc\u00eda. But with a twist: \u201cThey wanted to do a standard retrospective, but I sorted through all my hard drives and discovered that I have 13 unreleased films, so I proposed doing a Perrone In\u00e9ditos (Unpublished Perrone).\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
While some of them were screened at festivals abroad, the series will feature more than a dozen films that have never been shown in Argentina before.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Perrone\u2019s films can be found at platforms MUBI and ok.ru<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Like a sort of godfather of Argentine independent filmmaking, Ra\u00fal Perrone is considered a pioneer of the New Argentine Cinema that emerged in the 1990s. Always set in the Buenos Aires suburb Ituzaing\u00f3, his guerrilla-style productions put emphasis on using a single camera, direct sound, first takes, the smallest crew possible, few days of shooting, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":368,"featured_media":51975,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12827,149,1366,13694],"tags":[12823,133,1364,13693],"class_list":["post-51974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bafici","category-culture-ideas","category-film-series","category-raul-perrone","tag-bafici","tag-culture-ideas","tag-film-series","tag-raul-perrone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/368"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}