Coming straight from Argentina, the two Latin American directors, Carmen Rivoira and Delfina Gavaldá, have arrived at Berlinale after winning Mar del Plata’s International Film Festival best short-film competition with Mientras las olas (Meanwhile the waves).
Already selected for the Generation14plus section from Berlinale, this Latin American film has a subtle but powerful cultural diversity that has been carefully curated on every shot.
During Mientras las Olas, we follow the main character, Julia, who starts answering a series of random questions to an interviewer whose outside of the shot. After that, the camera follows her intensively around the different places of Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata without being clear where is she at each time. As Karen Byk says, Mientras las olas is a fictional story with a documentary approach.
In conversation with Lado|B|erlin, Carmen Rivoira and Delfina Gavaldá talk about how was producing such a film in Argentina as a project for their university of cinema, being one the most notorious aspects of its production that they have to raise money through parties to be able to afford the film and equipment.
After winning the Short Film competition at Mar del Plata’s International Film Festival in November of 2018, there’s only one thing left for this duo and that’s continuing with their career looking forward to the next project. Wherever the waves take them.
If you are looking for more information about the Latin American productions, events, and films at this Berlinale 69º, you can check the most complete list of films in our special featuring article here.
Film Details
In a deckchair under a beach umbrella in the middle of a traffic island, Julia sits listening to the Cranberries’ ‘Zombie’ at full volume – simply existing, in a world that seems to take little notice of her as it keeps on turning. Even her brief nervous breakdown at the hairdresser’s merely ebbs away, like waves that gather only to dissipate again. Between a Russian Orthodox mass and the beach, a search for identity unfolds.
by Delfina Gavaldá, Carmen Rivoira
with Guillermina Broens, Amadeo Monzani, Maribel Khazhal,
-source: Berlinale