Double Exposure: Reflections from El Pampero Cine Companions

Teamwork and collaboration have been essential to El Pampero’s sustained success and cultural impact for over two decades, significantly shaping the global independent cinema landscape. For this dossier, I reached out to colleagues and filmmakers to gather insights on how El Pampero has influenced their careers and artistic views. Two contributors in particular provided profound reflections on El Pampero’s role both within and beyond its network.

Our first invitee, María Villar, is an acclaimed Argentine actress renowned for her dynamic performances in films such as Viola (2012), La princesa de Francia (The Princess of France, 2014), and Isabella (2020), directed by Matías Piñeiro. Her initial involvement with El Pampero in La Flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018) was brief, yet it developed into deeper, more enriching collaborations in later projects like La vendedora de fósforos (The Little Match Girl, Alejo Moguillansky, 2017) and Un andantino (Alejo Moguillansky, 2023) culminating recently in Mariano Llinás’ very recent and highly anticipated project, Kunst der Farbe (2024).

Our second contributor, Andreas Fontana, a Swiss director and screenwriter celebrated for his 2021 film Azor, set against the backdrop of Argentina’s military dictatorship. Fontana’s passion for new Argentine cinema led him to invite Mariano Llinás to collaborate on the Azor screenplay, resulting in a remarkable partnership that included Llinás’ cameo, which sharply critiques that period.¹ Last year, Fontana extended an invitation to El Pampero members, including Alejo, to participate in events in Switzerland, highlighting the enduring partnership and raising hopes for future collaborations that promise to continue enriching contemporary cinema. The contributions from both individuals, initially written in Spanish and French respectively, have been translated and authorized by the authors for inclusion in this dossier.

The Little Match Girl

A time to live, a time to shoot

María Villar

Why should we hurry-why indeed?

When every way we fly

We are molested equally

By immortality.

– Emily Dickinson

I met Laura Citarella, Alejo Moguillansky, Agustín Mendilaharzu and Mariano Llinás not while filming, not at one of their premieres, not at a festival, not even in a film school class, but at a theatre party. It was the end of the year. December in Buenos Aires is so intense. Sometimes I think that from the first week on, we all change our expressions, our eyes become sparkling and desperate. We are accomplices: the madness has started and it’s going to sweep us away whether we like it or not. With that almost apocalyptic spirit, one night in December 2003, I go to a party. It’s in an abandoned factory that we used to rehearse, film or just hang out, located on Perú 422 Street. I go in, the party is great, December gives you these things too. We drink, we dance. While Healings Hands by Elton John is playing, I think, Alejo Moguillansky approaches me to greet me and says, without stopping dancing: no, what Matías is filming has to be a feature film, the material is asking for something else, we have to investigate and he takes some good steps, always from the hips down because he keeps his torso firm and his gaze open when he dances and taking a sip of beer he goes back to the dance floor. Impressed, with my gin and tonic in hand, I look for Matías Piñeiro with my eyes and there I see him, doing his dance in which it seems that his elbows are going to meet but they don’t and I think: could it be that we’re going to make a movie? I’m 23 years old, with an uncontrolled desire to act. I’ve just seen Fassbinder’s complete filmography and I’m in love with Hanna Schygulla and Barbara Sukowa, I want to be them, to have their lives. “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” by Whitney Houston takes me out of the daydream I’m having and I rush to the dance floor. A while later, in a kind of inner courtyard, Mariano Llinás with a cigar in his left hand, leaning semi-supported on the threshold of a rather destroyed door and making smoke rings that perfectly accompany his hypnotic monologue, talks about creative groups: We have to admit it once and for all – he says – there are still the groups linked to Jorge Luis Borges, and the others. He doesn’t assign any writer or woman writer to the others. He makes me laugh. Without stopping smoking, he looks up at the sky, as if seeking an epic answer to his theory, he doesn’t find it, laughs to himself and making the last three smoke rings he retires with his parsimonious walk. As the early hours of the morning go by, the frenzy overwhelms me and I whisper to myself in secret: I hope we make movies together. I was lucky. Don’t let yourself get carried away by the chaos of December, because it can have its magic.

From this encounter on, I began to watch their films. The premiere of Historias extraordinaries (Extraordinary Stories, Mariano Llinás, 2008) at BAFICI was a success. Not only for the immense film itself but also for what was happening in the corridors during the intervals. There was an effervescence in the air. It was a cinematic and theatrical night. At some point, I would understand that the four filmmakers have a connection with the Buenos Aires theatre scene would make them film and think about cinema the way they do. They are not afraid of excess. On the contrary. They film as if everything were a rehearsal, with a very attentive eye to what appears in the shot, the accident is their best ally. They don’t seem to be in a hurry. A few years later I was able to verify this on the set of La vendedora de fósforos (The Little Match Gir, 2017) by Alejo Moguillansky. There is a quote by Hemingway that I associate with the process of that film: “I omitted the real ending, which was that the old protagonist hanged himself. I omitted it based on my newly minted theory that one can omit any part of a story as long as you know very well what you are omitting, and that the omitted part communicates more strength to the story, and gives the reader the feeling that there is more than what has been said.”

I believe that what is omitted is a fundamental part of the structure of La vendedora de fósforos, it hovers over it in a mysterious way. Of the works in which I participated as an actress, this film has a peculiarity: never, in the process of the two years, did we know what we were going to film. And not knowing can be something very fruitful because if there is no script, if there is no economic structure that marks the times, if there is no precise place to get to, then there is only the present. Alejo took the liberty of doubting everything just before starting and said Action in a mischievous way, as if inviting chance. There was in his gaze a strong desire for something unexpected to happen during the shot. Of course, that moment of grace did not always happen. However, what moved me was his state of perception, attentive to the smallest detail. Once I was chatting with him after a day and he said something that I will never forget: let’s film, let’s generate material and then, by taking out, a sculpture will appear: the movie we are making. I treasure that talk, in the same way that I keep as a valuable secret all the shots from the shoot that were not left in the movie. Even now, in any project that I get involved in, whether there is a script or not, whether it is a large or small production, whether there is little time or a lot, I do the exercise of getting rid of everything, except for the desire to film. There is so much material that we do not know about in that instant that enables the powerful word: Action.

I don’t know if it was because we were always very few – between six and eleven people at most – or because we were seduced by the idea of sharing some kind of nonsense, but we all quickly became accomplices. And luckily, this way of going on a permanent quest for some material that we intuited could be there, waiting, we liked it and we exceeded ourselves. We filmed a lot without knowing what for. And on top of that, we had fun. When there is no money at stake, there is no fear of squandering it. Excess, chaos and uncertainty were a driving force behind the process; at some point a sculpting hand gave shape to all the material we had filmed for two years and this film appeared, which I love so much: La vendedora de fósforos (as if we didn’t care) we baptized it.

La Flor

One afternoon in November 2023, a few weeks before the runoff election between Massa and Milei, I receive a message from Mariano Llinás: I’m filming something, if you can come for a day, we’ll film something, we’ll do something. The last time we had worked together was exactly ten years ago, in 2013 on La Flor. That time we got together in El Pampero one afternoon and before we started talking about the scenes, Mariano grabs a black marker and draws a picture on a whiteboard. I can’t quite decipher what it is but I remain silent, expectant. Then he, standing in front of the whiteboard, explains that the drawing is a narrative structure, a kind of confluence of synthesized plots that, clearly as can be seen in the drawing, form a flower. I understand that treasuring a title and a structure can be an excuse to film. A few days after that meeting I have my participation in the filming. I am pregnant for the second time, I think I am two months along and feeling very well but very sleepy, I fall asleep at any time, position and place. As is inevitable in any filming, there are waiting times. In those two days in which I had to participate, every time I had to wait I would sleep and I remember that as soon as they woke me up, there was Mariano’s voice with precision and vehemence giving such clear instructions. That’s my memory, how, just out of a sleep from another world, he would tell me clearly what he did need to see and what he didn’t. I admired that he was not at all condescending, with anyone but above all with himself and I wished there was another opportunity to work together. I was lucky and ten years later, I get that call. The words scene, script, plan do not appear. I smile. I confirm: yes, we’ll do something. What more do I want than to film, always, but especially in these weeks, where the country seems to be at war, the desire increased. When I arrive at the El Pampero building, Mariano is already dressed in a kind of 40s costume, or so I assume at least. Particularly dishevelled, I never understood if on purpose or accidentally, we greet each other briefly and he goes down the corridor while I settle into one of the chairs. I wait. He reappears in the doorway, comments aloud something about his costume and with big steps he goes towards the other end of the corridor. Never, yet, has a word been said about what is going to be filmed. I interpret his behaviour as an invitation to a challenging game and, of course, not only do I decide to participate, but I am willing to win: how long can we stay like this, without me knowing, without him explaining? Until we are in front of the camera? Exactly! Already changed into a dark grey military-style suit and with a bun, Mariano hands me a book in German Kunst der Farbe. He tells me to translate, read and explain passages; he sits in front of a large monitor where he can be seen talking about art. And when he positions the camera and I perceive the framing, for a moment I feel the magic shine: we are in a mamushka. And of course, thank goodness there were no explanations from him or questions from me, what’s the point of someone explaining a mamushka to you if you’re going to be a part of it.

I have seen all the El Pampero films. I perceive each one as honest, existing because there is a question behind it and a desire to search. To investigate, I suppose, you don’t have to be in a hurry. And it is possible, although it is difficult and arduous, to dispense with a large economic structure. El Pampero is strong proof of that. After 20 years, I am excited to see that the fascination I had remains latent; because over time they have deepened this unique way of producing, filming, rehearsing and thinking about cinema. In addition, and as if that were not enough, they partnered and formed families with beacons of the Buenos Aires theatre scene: Luciana Acuña, Laura Paredes and Constanza Feldman. When I name them, the theatre party of December 2003 comes back to my mind and everything makes even more sense. I dare to say that El Pampero’s films are there, right on the threshold between the fleeting and ephemeral nature of the performing arts and the possibility of immortality and eternity offered by cinema. The four filmmakers have become expert jugglers who move with grace and courage between these two territories. And they also did it in their own time, in a fairly anarchic way.

Today, in a December 2023 in which Argentina is burning again, El Pampero’s way of producing is even more powerful. To me, at least, it gives me courage and invites me to resist. I imagine, then, a girl dreaming of being Monica Vitti, at a party full of euphoria and despair, meeting a group of young filmmakers who are inventing themselves and thinking about how to film despite a government that has just declared war on us. Blood is thicker than water, so we are not afraid, we are going to give them a party and movies.

***

Andreas Fontana & Mariano Llinás

Treasure Island

Andreas Fontana

If I were asked to describe what El Pampero Cine looks like, it is not very difficult to find an evocative image, a clear and striking image: that of a crew of pirates. El Pampero Cine and its scoundrels defy Argentine cinema – global cinema! – just as the black-flagged ships terrorized the waters of the Caribbean. But the golden age of pirates lasted only ten years; Edward “Blackbeard” Teach, Captain Rackham, or Mary Read ended up cornered by imperial authorities and sentenced to the gallows. El Pampero Cine, on the other hand, is now 22 years old, floating at its zenith, and the future belongs to it, despite the arrival of a far-right president who threatens to dismantle support for national cinema.

I’m not a fan of extended metaphors, but you’ll have to forgive me for this one. One cannot compare El Pampero to pirates without mentioning the ship that leads them on the tempestuous waters of the Rio de la Plata: their office on Cangallo Street. You must imagine these bandits, these impertinents, these incorrigible rascals, occupying premises the size of a ministry in the business district of the capital, a few meters from the Stock Exchange, the Presidential Palace, or the Teatro Colón. The Cangallo Street office is an irresistible vessel. It once housed what Argentinians call a “cueva de oro”: an underground currency exchange, where cash flowed from hand to hand. The chest of a vanished treasure.

Azor

I’ve spent a fair amount of time in this office. It has a Neapolitan coffee machine, five or six more or less immense rooms, a gigantic hall, and an infinity of hidden corners. On the wall of the meeting room, there is a large map of Aquilea, the imaginary city from Hugo Santiago’s film Invasión (Invasion, 1969); in the hallway, there is Tintin’s mummy, or more precisely, the one from the beginning of La Flor. The corridor, by the way, could host a greyhound race because it’s so long. The floor creaks, the doorknobs are brass, the elevator that leads to the floors is a Belle Époque ironwork and mirrors capsule. Across the street, a few meters from the doorman, there is a classic-style café-restaurant, the “Gedrez.” It welcomes lawyers, bankers, all the financiers of the neighbourhood, and the pirates of El Pampero Cine for the lunch menu. I’ve eaten in this restaurant often with Mariano, sometimes with Alejo, once with the producer Agustina Llambi-Campbell, the new neighbour downstairs, another buccaneer of Argentine cinema. You shouldn’t imagine these moments as bohemians fighting against the bourgeois order; we did exactly what all the other suit-and-tie clients did: we ate our “business menu,” drank our mineral water, talked about work, and then returned to the office. You don’t make films by drinking at the bistro and doodling on napkins, and that also applies to the pirates of El Pampero.

I keep talking about pirates, but the analogy with piracy stops there. The crew of El Pampero wields wooden swords, their tricorn hats are made of paper, and their battles are just games of delighted children. They are neither hunted nor desperate. And you won’t see them ordering a nasty rum and coke in a dingy tavern. I’ve rather shared Negronis with them in upscale cafes like La Biela or Oviedo. They are not nihilists. They are poets who still believe that the world is better off being known. Adventurers who have traversed the scientific bases of Antarctica, tasted the thick vodka of Siberia, skated on the lakes of Wisconsin, slept in dingy hotels in Geneva or elegant ones in La Tour-de-Peilz. They are filmmakers who have been everywhere and are fighting to let the world know that real cinema is no longer made in Paris, Moscow, or Los Angeles, but in an isolated corner, an exotic corner, a corner battered by the winds, and they alone know the true location: the province of Buenos Aires.

That’s the map of El Pampero Cine.

That’s where their treasure is hidden.

Endnotes