Log #4
by Pablo Roldán
Life at Talents BA
It is the day before last of events and the body is demanding a forceful break. These days have gone by amidst conferences and races to see many films. The aim has been to dedicate our efforts to analyze the profession of film criticism with an eye towards its improvement. Days go by with the purpose of turning my dialogue with cinema into an honest, personal and also liberating commitment.
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I come out of a meeting that leaves in me the desire to forge projects that imply printed articles (objects on the verge of extinction). The brain works non-stop looking for a form of publication that may perpetuate the love of cinema from a group of sensitivities.
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I enter the following event: a fabulous cocktail destined to the talents and to integrate their professions, and I run into a table full of cheeses and some buckets covered with beers (delicious! This is the life I deserve, I think). I run for the cheeses, I eat a couple, I turn around and there is an entourage of future South American talents starting to know one another (or better said: who have finished knowing one another). I, who was born almost disabled to flow into such a thing as social interaction, get tense and calculate in detail all the options I have. “Go to the Colombians”, my brain screams. Without a doubt, the idea sounds satisfactory and there I go, to join those from my country.
With them I discover that we are a huge and diverse group; we represent the main (and traditional) regions of our country. The only one enrolled as a critic: myself. I am amongst editors, directors, producers and an actress. We discuss mutual aspects of our education, different films, subjects in common, projects in development. We rub off on each other’s excitement. I think about the eventful days together, where each one, in their own profession, faced a forceful revision of their work and their tools of creation.
My intention, which was to get closer to the seeds of words and to find the routes to be able to see on a film the criteria that will make it stand out from the whole, was overflowed by an intersection of ideas nurtured every day, always with the aid of extensive debates with fellow participants. The words destined to think what film criticism is, why do it, where it is going and what its place is right now never stopped flowing. The reflection on the profession was fundamental.
Am I now a different critic from the one who stepped in Buenos Aires for the first time five days ago? Probably. My head never rested and I hope it never will.
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“Cheers!” says a compatriot stretching out his hand with a beer. I return the words and the gesture. Now I remain in the conversation with the Colombians. The cocktail ends and I run towards the cinema, my routine these days.
