Buenos Aires, November 22, 2004
A controversial decision

A controversial decision: Buenos Aires International Film Festival in a political storm

By Leonardo D’Esposito

On Thursday, November 18, the Argentine film world was shaken by the news that Eduardo Antin (a.k.a. Quintín) was dismissed as director of the extraordinarily successful Buenos Aires International Film Festival, “for incompatibility of functions.” The fact that he was immediately replaced by Fernando Martín Peña (film critic and programmer of MALBA, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires) was even more shocking. His appointment as new director appeared in less than 24 hours.

The dismissal was communicated to Quintín through a personal e-mail from Gustavo López, Secretary of Culture of the City Government of Buenos Aires, which had been sent on Wednesday, November 17. In parallel, the explanation of the dismissal given to the press was as follows: “In our view, there is an incompatibility between his present function and his new role as programming coordinator of a private festival with similar features to be held in Mar del Plata (MARFICI).”

The decision was ratified in press releases published in the newspapers of Buenos Aires, and the replacement of Quintín by film critic and teacher Fernando Martín Peña, currently a programmer at the MALBA, which is also a private enterprise, was communicated on Thursday, November 18.

On Friday, November 19, Peña said to Clarín (one the most important newspapers in Argentina) that there would be some changes in the BAFICI organization, but he did not explain what those would be. “Basically I respect everything that has been done, but I feel we have to be more open ideologically, and also in relation to the potential audiences. I noticed a strong ideological confrontation with Mar del Plata International Film Festival and with the INCAA (the Argentine Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts), and it seems to me that this attitude does not fit any longer with the present times. It might be right during Menem’s Administration, but now we have to take a more integrating and respectful attitude.”

As to changes in the programmers of the Festival, Peña said in the same interview: “I will bring my own people for certain things. Gustavo López’ decision only refers to Quintín. I respect the work done until now by the people, the production staff is ratified. I know these things are disturbing, but it is unnecessary.”

Meanwhile, Quintín was abroad at the festival in Turin. To clarify his dismissal from the BAFICI and to know his position about it, Terra had an interview with Quintín.

Dismissal in the BAFICI

Quintín: “It is a huge lack of transparency”

D’Esposito: Was there any incompatibility between your functions as artistic director of the BAFICI and the enterprise in Mar del Plata?

Quintín: Well, there are three problems. First, nobody can be fired because of unchecked journalistic information. In that case, the person must be asked first if the information that appeared in the press is true. Second, the article in La Nación where I supposedly make some statements, does not say that I am directing any festival other than the BAFICI.

Third, the people of the MARFICI got in touch with me for the first time six months ago. This festival had been already launched in April 2004. For three months I tried to speak about the subject with my boss, Claudio Pustelnik (chief of Cabinet of the Secretary of Culture Gustavo López). Neither López nor Pustelnik answered my phone calls, not even the day when I called them to announce my mother’s death. Finally, Flavia and I had to leave the country and to start travelling for two months in order to start programming for the BAFICI.

Once again, we had no travel budget, and we had no shipping account to receive preview videocassettes. Without the personal resources I used in previous opportunities, and without the possibility of asking financial support from European foundations—because in those days newspapers were talking about the fiscal surplus of the City of Buenos Aires, and it was really embarrassing for me to refer again to the Argentine crisis—we and the staff decided to accept the MARFICI offer. We signed an agreement, according to which our only responsibility was to give a list of films and their contacts on November 10. Originally, there were 100 films, eventually reduced to 64 for lack of budget.

In fact, we had to finance the search of films for the BAFICI with the wages we earned in the MARFICI. Besides, the idea that the spirit of a free and successful festival spread in other spaces seemed to us unobjectionable and a motive of pride for the city of Buenos Aires and its Secretariat of Culture. Anyway, this is an arguable issue, and López could have told us and also the organizers of the MARFICI if he thought that they shouldn’t use that name. And this is the core of the problem. López is not an official with democratic procedures.

In fact, he believes he has the right to infringe on our freedom to work. We never signed an agreement for exclusiveness with the City Government of Buenos Aires, we signed a trash agreement: work location, without the obligatory thirteenth salary, no holidays, no social security, no retirement or other rights. Since 1816, when slavery was abolished in Argentina, the work force belongs to the citizens. But López thinks that people hired in his department belong to him, and that he has the right to decide when they can work and when they cannot. And to communicate this faculty through acts of administrative terrorism, such as a communicating a dismissal to somebody who is 10,000 kilometres away from Buenos Aires, by e-mail, and due to unchecked journalistic information.

Our dedication to the BAFICI was more than full time. As everybody knows, ours was always a case of over-dedication. A dedication poorly paid, with very bad work conditions, and never recognized in the spheres of the Secretariat of Culture, in spite of the important recognition from the Argentine audiences and abroad. The Secretariat of Culture was unable to understand the project we always proposed to them: to transform the festival into a privileged symbol of the culture of the city, such as Rotterdam’s or Toronto’s festivals are for their cities.

The issue of compatibility is a joke. Ninety percent of BAFICI 2005 was already planned, we had more than enough films, and we were not employed in Mar del Plata—we simply sold our professional services. Yes, we did profit from the travels for the BAFICI, but financing those travels with the money we earned in Mar del Plata.

Moreover, the fact that López thinks that an activity of culture entertainment such as programming a film festival should be done under conditions of exclusiveness (and not agreed, to make matters worse) sounds very suspicious. Spreading the film culture along the country doesn’t seem to be the kind of activity subject to restrictions. It looks as if the Secretariat of Culture were the Coca-Cola keeping someone from working for Pepsi.

D’Esposito: Do you feel the MARFICI served as an excuse for your dismissal?

Quintín: Well, it looks like that. Last year we were about to be fired, and finally they appointed a president who turned out to be so unpresentable that even they couldn’t use him. In this original package, Peña was included as programmer, “to make a more open festival,” as it was said at that time. All suggests that my successor was designed long before my dismissal, and that they made the change in the first opportunity they found.

I would like to add that on that occasion the excuse was an article I wrote for a foreign magazine (Cahiers du Cinéma) and which, according to the authorities of the Secretariat of Culture, disturbed the INCAA’s director Jorge Coscia. This year Coscia seems to be disturbed by the MARFICI as well. Apparently the INCAA is very influential in the decisions of the Secretariat of Culture of the City Government of Buenos Aires.

Anyway, in both cases there was a restriction of individual rights. López assumes that people hired by the Secretariat have no right to express themselves freely through the press or to practice a legitimate commercial activity. What worries me most is the authoritarianism of a government that claims to be progressive. I feel offended as a citizen, and it is my duty to make it public.

Something else. If López did not agree with our management (that is his prerogative), he should have dismissed us in May, instead of confirming us at that time. But he did it in mid-November, wasting all the work done, and forcing the new director to assume responsibility for undoing what has been done and for telling the invited people and films not to come because the director has changed. It is a waste of the Secretariat’s patrimony and a huge lack of transparency. López knows it, and the weakness of his argument makes me fear that defamation will come after the lie in order to justify his mistake as a civil servant.

D’Esposito: Do you think that your successor is competent for the job?

Quintín: His CV is more than acceptable for this job. But of course, as we say in Argentina, only in the race can a horse prove his value.

D’Esposito: Do you think that there will be substantial changes in the BAFICI after your dismissal?

Quintín: I’m not the right person to answer this question.

Reprinted with the permission of Terra.

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