A group of Argentine film professionals was incensed by state funding cuts to the industry and changes to the iconic Mar del Plata film festival that favor commercial appeal over creative innovation. So, they started their own.

Contracampo (Spanish for ‘reverse shot’) will run November 22 to 26, parallel to the Mar del Plata festival, with screenings of Argentine films at the Enrique Carreras Theater (Entre Ríos 1824) and public conversations with leading film professionals about the current state of the local industry.

The Herald has learned the program will include some of the most recent Argentine films that have competed at the latest top international festivals. A former Mar del Plata festival director is also expected to participate in the event. 

Contracampo’s organizers accused the new leaders of the National Film and Audiovisual Arts Institute (INCAA) of “impoverishing our cinema” with policies that undermine Argentine cinema’s ability to compete in dynamic market.

“We believe that training spectators and cultivating the audiences’ will to see Argentine cinema should also be state policy, and not just the responsibility of the audiovisual sector.” 

Ever since taking office, Javier Milei’s “chainsaw” policies have specifically targeted INCAA’s funding structure, and the institute’s new administration has carried out massive layoffs, slashing most of its subsidies and modifying the requirements to request for financial aid. 

This has sparked reactions ranging from demonstrations at film festivals like Cannes and San Sebastián and, most recently, a number of audiovisual associations pulling their juries from the Mar del Plata festival in protest.

“Our productions and our sources of work are no longer in danger — they are under attack,” read a statement by the Federation of Associations of Argentine Audiovisual Industry Professionals explaining why they would not award their traditional unofficial prizes at the festival.  

Organizers describe Contracampo as “a political action created because freedom of speech, aesthetic radicality and film federalism are under threat”. 

“It’s an exhibition of films that form a heterogeneous landscape of the kind of Argentine cinema that should be promoted through public policies,” they added. 

Several film professional associations — including the Argentine Film Industry Chamber — issued a joint statement on Thursday in support of the initiative.

The event’s name carries significant symbolic weight. “Contracampo” was the name of an influential film magazine that helped boost the so-called New Argentine Cinema in the early 1960s. It was also the name of a marginal section of the Mar del Plata film festival in the 1990s, which programmed aesthetically challenging cinema in a context in which the festival was curated by mostly commercial standards.

Back in April, Mar del Plata mayor Guillermo Montenegro said he wanted the event to become a Netflix or HBO film festival. His words mirrored INCAA’s decision to stop funding the festival and instead seek private financing, eyeing streaming platforms in particular.

“The Mar del Plata Film Festival, a long-time INCAA showcase to promote the diversity of Argentine cinema, is at risk of falling into this logic of pure mercantilism,” Contracampo stated.