Ata tu arado a estrella Directed by Carmen Guarini

Ata tu arado a estrella

Director: Carmen Guarini

Cast: Fernando Birri, Osvaldo Bayer, Carmen Papio Birri, Teresa Díaz, León Ferrari, Eduardo Galeano, Ernesto Sábato, Tanya Valette

Year: 2017

Provenance: Argentina

"Qué es la utopia?"

On the site of the Escuela Internacional de Cine y TV in San Antonio de Los Baños (1) a few tens of kilometres from Havana, there is a fundamental photograph in black and white. It is December 15, 1986, is the day of the inauguration of the school. The foundation of film education is the typical and solid one of the Cuban seriousness: a deep knowledge, a selection of the best teachers and a wide commitment of the students. Undoubtedly, there is a strong third-world political presence, in fact, in the first moment, the school was open only to young people coming from South America, Africa and Asia. The reasons for the foundation are in gathering the best students from the emerging countries of the world, as opposed to the indisputable sovereign of the cinema: the western and the American.

The establishment of the school is a total commitment, both of people, and ideas; it is the challenge of Goliath against David, the titanic and rich Hollywood against the fervour and the Cuban dedication.

Who wanted this school?

In the photo, there are the three founders: Fidel Castro in his military uniform, the writer Gabriel García Márquez and the Argentine director, with studies in Italy, Fernando Birri. The latter was also the first director of the school.

How can this challenge this be read? In the country of the revolución máxima, is not this competition the maximum of utopias?

How is it difficult to recognize the utopias and identify the concept? The director Carmen Guarini narrated this thought in the documentary Ata tu arado a estrella presented at the 54th International Film Festival in Pesaro. The protagonist is one of the three characters in the Cuban photo, the director Fernando Birri.

We are in 1997, thirty years have passed since the death of Che Guevara, and the television of Lipsia asked Fernando Birri to make a documentary with the emblematic title: Che: ¿muerte de la utopia? - Che: Tod der Utopie? (2)

Birri's work was an intellectual discussion because he joined Che with the cultural thought of utopia.

Birri and the authors already had the intrinsic answer to the question. Combining the death of the Cuban revolutionary in Bolivia and explaining the meaning of utopia, directly contains the solution.

The director Carmen Guarini filmed the backstage during the shoot.

Obviously, the film has a centrality: the authority and the supremacy of Fernando Birri.

First shot. Latin American music, a beautiful house, Fernando closes the doors, turns in the direction of the camera and explains that he is wasting time in closing because inside there are only books: "I wish they steal them" is his funny sentence. They are in Argentina, in the countryside and the crew is going to a school in a village of farmers.

Fernando appears as a handsome, authoritative, representative character, helped by the tall physique, by the prestigious white of the thick hair and the imposing beard.

In the backstage images, Fernando is dominant, although he is accompanied by many important authors.

He is always the most important for everyone both in the filming and during the breaks, like the pleasant evening at dinner with friends and crew. Fernando is friendly, popular, he is different from many fake intellectuals, he has no conceited vanity. Ironically and kindly states: "this obsession with filming life" and at the same time complains that the meat is getting cold.

Fernando is the object, the goal of the film. It is central, noble, the look is cheerful, kind, courteous and above all very intelligent. A cultural intelligence, without pride; like when Carmen shoots him off shoulders when he is talking to his Argentine friend Ernesto. We can not see the face but feel his warm voice, while there is only one source of light from the window.

The other characteristic of Fernando is the loquacity, the willingness to converse both with joy, and with an abundance of details. He entertained the public, the patrons, always speak with wits, for moral aphorisms: "in your opinion, there are intelligent passions."

Carmen is able to show the contrast between the rich intellectual sitting in a beautiful house and the poor campesino crouched on a stone in the earth. Can utopia have the same meaning for two people so different? "The right to dream is not in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights" and "it is a word that has no meaning".

Fernando is dominant, from behind, in profile, with a voice over; he is thinking, he is looking for new visions, choosing the position of the camera, soliciting the interviewees. The images are edited between a shooting of the film and another of conviviality while reciting poetry for friends.

He is a funny guy, measures the music on the table while telling how he would like his sensational funeral. Everyone must drink beer with the ash of his body. There is a basis of narcissism in his omnipresence.

The film is composed of two parts. The first is the backstage, the second is an interview with Fernando at his home in Rome.

Fernando appears old, sick, tired, walking with difficulty. But the mind, the spirit, the imagination are still lucid and brilliant.

The director shoots him while having fun like a child playing with an electric ghost as a child.

He is ill, but they give him a mini digital camera: "I wish I would have had it half a century ago" is his reaction, not as old man but as curious young.

It rejoices using it; appears a small shot of him, with the camera pointing down on the detail, then rises to an orange until a tight close up of his face. His professionalism is invariably elevated even for the home film and even give a title "viaje al rendendor de mi cuarto."

At the end of the interview, Fernando explains his utopia idea, linking an oxymoron as "memory of the future" to the concept of "project".

His utopia is his youth, it is the school of the third world, the memory of the future. His utopia is a place, and the camera frames a sign that reads “faltan tres dias”, the countdown to the opening of the Escuela Internacional de Cine. As an entertainer, he speaks of the dream of uniting three continents, the poorest, the most subdued. The school is intended as a cultural heritage, as many willing young people can carry forward his ideas, the revolution for a better future.

But even this utopia ends. The school goes into crisis, the three worlds are no longer a prerogative, but Fernando does not surrender, does not get depressed. His school will accompany him even after he is dead.

(1) http://www.eictv.org/quienes-somos/historia/

(2) http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/fernando-birri_%28Enciclopedia-del-Cinema%29/