Contrakultura Films

Contrakultura Films was imprint of Iruña Films of Buenos Aires dedicated to produce biographical documentaries on Latin American writers. However, the catalogue would later have expanded to include visual artists such as Andrés Waissman and Humberto Calzada, and [social scientists] like León Rozitchner and Jorge Lovisolo.

Contrakultura produced approximately twenty-five documentary films between 2002 through 2006. The films produced by Contrakultura are currently owned by [Heritage Film Project].^[1]

The initial contrakultural series was known as “Perfiles”, and was made of thirteen biographical documentaries. The series was presented at the Biennial Northeast Regional Meeting "Luso-Hispanic Presence in the Changing Cultural Landscape of America", organized by the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese at Yale University.^[2]

Several of the documentaries on the series Perfiles where directed by Eduardo Montes-Bradley. Some of original titles are listed under a pseudonym inspired in legendary actresses of the silent era of Mexican Cinema such as Cándida Beltrán, Mimi Derba, Ana Lobos, Emma Padilla, Lupe Velez, Maria Laura del Rio, Ma. Laura Del Rio.^[3]

Contrakultura also produced the series known as the NOA Trilogy, films produced by Contrakultura and directed by Norbert “Negro” Ramírez in the Jujuy and Salta provinces, on the Northwestern region of Argentina.

Perfiles

Perfiles was a series of thirteen documentaries by Eduardo Montes-Bradley which had already produced biographical documentaries on Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, Osvaldo Soriano and Osvaldo Bayer.

The average budget for a documentary on Perfiles was $40,000 of which 25% came as advance distribution fees advance from Patagonia Film Group, LLC, and 75% was subsidized by the Ministry of Culture of Argentina through National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts.

• Una cierta mirada. Conversations with Juan José Sebreli. Sebreli recalls his entire life in front of camera taking the audience for a ride through timeless Buenos Aires. Sebreli's extraordinary perception of the surroundings, the arts, the architecture and the music of the city he was born in and he loves is a constant throughout the entire film. In a way, this doc can be watch as a 20th-century Tour Guide of Buenos Aires, a sketch on Peronism and yet, more.^[4][5]
• Le mot Juste. The documentary tracks Héctor Tizón to his hometown of Yala in Jujuy, Argentina. In a series of interviews with Montes-Bradley the novelist recalls childhood, and the traumatic experience on living on the edge of two extremely different cultures: the Quechua universe of his native homeland, and the Spanish culture of the conquistadores.^[6] In the film Tizón explores the idea of exile in different directions with particular emphasis to the exile of the native inhabitants of the Puna in a territory dominated by the Spanish Culture and Catholic traditions. Tizón also talks in this film about his personal experience in exile during the dictatorship of Jorge Rafael Videla.^[7]
• La otra orilla. Biographical sketch on writer and psychotherapist Luis Gusmán, member of Revista Sitio and member of the generation of Osvaldo Lamborghini and Germán García. Gusmán is a Konex Award recipient. La otra orilla follows on the footsteps of Gusmán from Avellaneda, in the peripheral and less privilege southern suburbs of Buenos Aires, to the middle class-hipster Palermo in the capital city. The film includes previously unknown tango recordings of Luis Gusmán´s father.^[8] The actual interviews with Gusmám were conducted behind camera by film student Yael Szmulewicz under the supervision of Montes-Bradley, camera by Alejandro Ortiz, Sound by Horacio Almada. DV | 70 min. and 70 min. version.^[9]
• Planeta Bizzio, Documentary on the life and works of Sergio Bizzio, an off beat-poet, playwright and novelist. Interview conducted by Nadina Fushimi.
• Deliciosas perversiones polimorfas. Intimate portrait of Alberto Laiseca, a cult literary figure of Buenos Aires better known for his fictional metaphysics. The film explores the relationship of the writer with his father, a rural family doctor living in Córdoba. References to Edgar A. Poe, William Shakespeare and the imminent arrival of the Antichrist are a constant throughout.^[10]
• Si yo fuera Realmente Libre. Biographical essay on the life and works of Alan Pauls. Interview conducted by Daniel Guebel.^[11]
• Ecce Homo. Biographical essay on writer and cultural icon Juan Filloy. On July 15, 2000, Juan Filloy didn´t woke up from his provincial siesta. He was 106, and shortly before that day he had consented to be interviewed on film by Ana da Costa. That interview is what guides director Eduardo Montes-Bradley to reconstruct the life of the centenarian and most enigmatic literary figure of the Twentieth century in Argentina.^[12] Contrakultura, 2004. 52 min.^[13][14]
• Las memorias del señor Alzheimer. The sole protagonist in this film is Jorge "Dipi" Di Paola, a dadaist-eccentric, writer-poet, an unconventional character of the Buenos Aires underground during the 1970s. The film was shot in 2007, shortly before Di Paola's death in Tandil, some 450 kilometers from the capital of Argentina. In the film Di Paola, recalls the times in which he and his mentor Witold Gombrowicz shared an apartment in Buenos Aires first, and later in Di Paola's home-town of Tandil. Produced by Montes-Bradley, directed by Sergio Belloti.^[15]

Andres Rivera and crew on the set of "Marcos Ribak aka Andrés Rivera".

• Marcos Ribak aka Andrés Rivera. Biographical portrait of Andrés Rivera author of "La revolución es un sueño eterno". The film was primarily shot in Córdoba where the author lived with his second wife Susana Fiorito. The film contributes to shed light on Polish Jewelry immigration to Argentina, and in the political life of young members of the Communist Party in Buenos Aires during the Peronist regime (1945-1955).^[16] Many of the scenes of this film where shot at the legendary Eden Hotel, know to have served as retreat to former nazi officer after the war.
• No matarás. Documentary on Marcelo Birmajer, an irreverent Jewish-Argentine writer, who´s political views, largely at odds with the overwhelming "progressive"-minded cultural milieu in Buenos Aires are largely responsible for his continue political isolation. In the film Birmajer presents himself to the audience as a lost soul somewhere between Buenos Aires and a not so distant Middle East; holding a tight grip on the umbilical cord that his Jewish-mother preserves intact for generations to-come. The film was produced shortly after the terrorist attack to AMIA and the Israel Embassy in Buenos Aires which recently gained renewed attention in the media after the presumed murder of Alberto Nisman. In the film Birmajer accuses Iran as the primary instigator of the terrorist attacks in Buenos Aires.^[17]
• El país de no me acuerdo (Neverland). A biographical sketch on Ivan Grondona. Produced with the support of INCAA, Ministerio de Cultura, National Endowment for the Arts, City of Buenos Aires, Sociedad Argentina de Escritores, and Biblioteca Nacional Filmed scarcely two years before Grondona's passing in Buenos Aires in 2006, the film explores the political life in Argentina through the eyes of this iconic and revered actor-director who first appearance in the screen Immigrants came under the direction of Aldo Fabrizi. The film comes a severe critique to Peronism, and what Grondona refers to in the film as "moral decay" and the "decomposition of the social fabric in Argentina". Produced by Contrakultura, 2004. Cinematography Alejandro Ortiz, Sound Horacio Almada. Directed by Eduardo Montes-Bradley as Cándida Beltrán. DV | 79 min.^[18]
• Saludablemente en pelotas. Biographical sketch on Juan Sasturain, journalist (Pagina/12), and fiction writer better known for his collaboration with comics artist.
• La célula fugitiva. Biographical sketch on journalist and script writer José Pablo Feinmann. The title translates as "The fugitive cell" and alludes to the protagonist survival to a cancer diagnosis during the government of Isabel Perón and the Triple A.
• Desandando el tiempo. Biographical sketch of poet Juan-Jacobo Bajarlía (1914-2005). Produced by Eduardo Montes-Bradley and Directed by Rodolfo Durán as "Valentina Carrasco".
• En el nombre del padre. Biographical sketch on Ana María Shua.
• Espléndida decadencia. Biographical sketch on Daniel Guebel.

NOA Trilogy

Series of three documentary films produced by Montes-Bradley with the support of the Ministry of Culture of Salta, and a grant from the National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts. The trilogy was directed by Norberto "Negro" Ramírez, a filmmaker stablished in the Salta Province. NOA is the acronym for Noroeste Argentino (North West Argentina), a region also known as Puna, which mainly includes Jujuy and Salta provinces.

• From Frankfurt to Humahuaca. Biographical-essay on Jorge Lovisolo, a philosopher entrenched in the northwestern province of Salta; a disciple of The Frankfurt School, and author of numerous essays. The film deals with Lovisolo's obsessions in a sort of self-imposed exile in Salta; his perspectives on religion and local communities, the thoughts of Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse, Theodore Adorno and others.^[19] NOA Productions, 2005.
• Kopla Vera. Biographical-essay on Jesús Ramón Vera, author of numerous verses inspired in the liturgical carnival of Jujuy. NOA Productions, c. 2006.
• Yo y el tiempo. Biographical-essay on poet-composer Juan José Botelli, a native and cultural icon in Salta. "Yo y el tiempo" is the third and last documentary in the NOA trilogy produced by Montes-Bradley, and directed by Norberto "Negro" Ramírez. NOA Productions, c.2006

Notes