During July, Proa Cinema presented Edgardo Cozarinsky’s last film: “Apuntes para una biografía imaginaria”, which was very well received by the audience. In its four screenings, the film’s director discussed with renowned cinema personalities.

Cozarinsky wrote the following words as a conclusion to the program, which Proa Cinema was proud to have presented:

‘There is a “camera cinema”, which does not want to interact with its audience. It doesn’t request numerous viewers, more to the contrary. An adequate ambiance for listening to one of Mahler’s symphonies differs greatly from one suitable for Haydn’s quartet.
The ideal receiving space for what I call “camera cinema” is intimate; I dare say, confidential. This is the reason why Proa’s Auditorium seemed ideal to present my “Apuntes para una biografía imaginaria”. At this place, the spectator could listen to Ulises Conti’s music and immerse himself in the game of fiction versus document, hinted by the images and few texts on the film, away from the noise of popcorn chewing, so familiar to cinema theaters. This chosen space enabled a casual approach with the audience after each screening. If the legitimate seduction of industrial cinema is based upon the splendor behind the show, the “camera cinema” introduces a different way of establishing a conversation with the audience.’

Edgardo Cozarinsky

Information and reservation: auditorio@proa.org / 4104 1000
Limited seating. General admission: $10 / Students and Senior citizen: $8

Proa Cine presents a new screening of Edgardo Cozarinsky’s film Apuntes para una biografía imaginaria.

Last Saturday, Cozarinsky attended the screening and was interviewed by the director, teacher and researcher Hernán Khourian, in a conversation that proposed an in depth analysis on the film´s montage and sound editing.

Last screening: Saturday July 31, 7.00pm

+ information >>

Press releases

Un rescate emotivo y personal. ADN / La Nación. 24.07.2010
Eduardo Cozarinsky, en la Fundación Proa. Con un largo camino recorrido. Diario La Nación. 24.07.2010
COZARINSKY PRESENTA SUS “APUNTES PARA UNA BIOGRAFIA IMAGINARIA. Terra Noticias. 24.07.2010
Cozarinsky presenta sus “apuntes para una biografia imaginaria”. Yahoo Noticias. 23.07.2010
Presentan documental “Apuntes para una biografía imaginaria” en Fundación Proa. Diario Hoy en la Noticia. 23.07.2010
Se estrenó un documental del cineasta Edgardo Cazarinsky. Escribiendo Cine. 23.07.2010
Deconstruyéndose. Subjetiva. 22.07.2010
Presentan “Apuntes para una biografía imaginaria”. Diario Hoy. 12.07.2010
Un viaje por una vida. La Prensa. 11.07.2010
Autorretrato de Cozarinsky. Página 12. 11.07.2010
Sábados de superac(c)ión. Linkillo. 09.07.2010
Apuntes para una biografía imaginaria. Blog La Espada Vengadora. 07.07.2010

Information and reservation: auditorio@proa.org / 4104 1000
Limited seating. General admission: $10 / Students and Senior citizen: $8

Proa Cine presents a new screening of Edgardo Cozarinsky’s film Apuntes para una biografía imaginaria.

Last Saturday, Cozarinsky attended the screening and was interviewed by scriptwriter and director Santiago Palavecino, in an enriching dialogue with the presence of the audience.

Last screenings: Saturday July 24 and 31, 7.00pm

More information >>

With the attendance of the film’ s director
Information and reservation: auditorio@proa.org / 4104 1000

Proa Cinema will show, for a second time, “Apuntes para una biografía imaginaria”, Edgardo Cozarinsky’ s latest cinematographic essay. The film premiere was a great success. The director attended the screening and talked with the audience after the show. Several well-known cinema, literature and art personalities also attended the screening.

Screenings only on Saturday July 17, 24, 3, at 7PM.

+ información >>

Press releases

Presentan “Apuntes para una biografía imaginaria”. Diario Hoy. 12.07.2010
Un viaje por una vida. La Prensa. 11.07.2010
Autorretrato de Cozarinsky. Página 12. 11.07.2010
Sábados de superac(c)ión. Linkillo. 09.07.2010
Apuntes para una biografía imaginaria. Blog La Espada Vengadora. 07.07.2010

Premiere Photos

Concept: Valeria González / Gabriel Baggio
Texts: Valeria González

July Saturday 17, 17PM
Fundación Proa’s Auditorium. Free admission

Valeria González presents “In search of lost sense” (Papers Editores, 2009). The ten projects brought together in this book were carried out in private homes or institutions found outside the art circuit between 1998 and 2008.

According to the authors, “While the search for alternative locations responded to a critical, negative attitude within the avant-garde tradition, these artists postulate a terrain of singular affirmation. They orchestrate connective situations and experiences that differ widely, in the author’s opinion, from so-called relational aesthetics, because they search for ethical values capable of offering resistance to contemporary culture´s dominant models”.

In search of lost sense brings together the following projects:
“Ferro-Carriles Argentinos” (“Argentinean Railways”), 1998, Patricio Larrambebere
“Ensayo de un Museo Libertario” (“Rehearsal for an Anarchist Museum”), 2000, Magdalena Jitrik
“Opción Antifuncional” (“Anti-functional Option”), 2001, Silvina D’Alessandro y Marcos Xcella
“Nieto” (“Grandson”), 2002, Gabriel Baggio
“Domínguez Dentrecasa” (“Homebody Domínguez”), 2003, Lila Siegrist
“El Arco del Triunfo Entrópico” (“The Entropic Triumphal Arch”), 2004, Julián d’Angiolillo
“Laboratorio Baigorria S.A.” (“Baigorria Laboratories”), 2004,  Verónica Gómez
“Visitas a la casa del coleccionista” (“Visits to the Collector’s House”), 2004,  Provisorio-permanente
“Desde el Alma” (“From the Soul”), 2007, Gabriel Baggio, Carolina Katz y Zoe Di Rienzo
“Espacios débiles” (“Weak Spaces”), 2008, Romina Orazi

The publication includes a large graphic display of photographs of the works and a DVD with audiovisual recordings for 4 of the projects.

“From the Soul” inhabited apartment of Gabriel Baggio, Zoe Di Rienzo and Carolina Katz

“In search of lost sense. 10 argentinean art projects. 1998-2008″ (2010)
Papers Editores
156 pages / Bilingual edition / Includes DVD

Available at Proa’s Library:
libreria@proa.org / +54 11 4104-1005
http://proa.org/eng/library.php

On July, Proa Cinema will present Apuntes para una biografía imaginaria (2010, 60’), writer/ director Edgardo Cozarinsky’ s latest film.

The filmmaker will discuss his work with the audience at the end of the projection

Saturday July 10, 17, 24 and 31, 7 PM
Fundación Proa’s Auditorium Av. Pedro de Mendoza 1929 (Caminito)

For more information: auditorio@proa.org

On July, Proa Cinema will present Apuntes para una biografía imaginaria (2010, 60’), writer/ director Edgardo Cozarinsky’ s latest film. The film will only be shown four times on Saturday July 10, 17, 24, 31 at 7PM.

Highlighting its experimental value, this visual biography navigates between the forms of the essay, the cinematographic production and narration without circumscribing to any specific gender. The presence of Cozarinsky, unavoidable writer, suggests the script and editing new reading territories, new frontiers in the search of memory/ remembrance.
The “imaginary biography” is constructed throught fragments of previous works as well as discarded material not used in films such as “One Man’s War” (1982), “Sunset Boulevards” (1992) y “El violín de Rothschild” (1996). This journey throughout the author’s biography is combined with historical pieces belonging to Cozarinsky‘ s personal archive (images of Vietnam, Stalin at the end of World War II and France under the German occupation)

Apuntes para una biografía imaginaria was previously premiered at BAFICI’ s 2010 edition, with two showings. The Film Festival dedicated the Panorama Section to acknowledge the director’s film trajectory. In this occasion, Cozarinsky presented his book  “Cinematógrafo”, a collection of his essays on cinema.

Film Credits
Production: Constanza Sanz Palacios
Written and directed by: Edgardo Cozarinsky
Original Soundtrack: Ulises Conti
Editing: Eduardo López
Sound: Gaspar Scheuer
Postproduction: Facundo Pires, Galel Maidana
Material restoration: Juan José Stagnaro

With the support of Buenos Aires Patronage’s law, Tenaris – Techint Organization and La Bestia Equilátera Publishing House.

Apuntes para una biografía imaginaria will premiere on July, 10 at 7PM at Fundación Proa’s Auditorium and will be shown again on Saturday July 17, 24, 31.

Limited seating / General Admission: $10. Students and Senior citizen: $8.
By telephone with American Express to: [+54 11] 4104-1000

On the Film
Paraphrasing Borges, Edgardo Cozarinsky has gathered images, words and sounds. One fine day, inspired by Ulises Conti’ s music, he realizes that these fragments – in which History dialogues with people’s fate and silent grievance – draw the image of his own face.

On the author
Edgardo Cozarinsky was born in Buenos Aires, and lived over thirty years in Paris. Nowadays, he spends most of his time in his hometown. Amongst his books, we can highlight his novels “El rufián moldavo”, “Maniobras nocturnas” and “Lejos de dónde”, the short stories “La novia de Odessa” and “Tres fronteras”, the essays “El pase del testigo” and “Blues”, and the unclassifiable “Vudú urbano”. When it comes to his film productions, his favorites are “La Guerre d’un seul homme”, “Boulevard du créspuscule”, “Le Violon de Rothschild”and “Ronda nocturna”.

Sergio Wolf
The smaller stories that grow at the margins of the Big History were more the underlying tone of Cozarinsky’ s films– and stories, essays and novels -, than its subject matter. Nevertheless, there was also a literary dimension, a flow of lives, destinations, passions and convictions, both crossed and interfered. In this sense, Apuntes para una biografía imaginaria is both a continuity and the beginning of a new course for the filmmaker’s productions; since these stories – filmed, found, alluded, stories of love and pain, even secret stories – don’t pretend to suggest a sense of totality. They are part of a quest – that twin sister of randomness – that zigzags, finds, abandons, lightly illuminates then vanishes, leaving us with the gratifying feeling that under those beautiful moving texts, behind these powerful yet unknown images, there is more, much more. In these times, when cinema is defined by its excesses, Apuntes … produces an extraordinary effect: its sobriety is so discrete and confessional that it reminds us that cinema is not the world’s rumor but is made of – or better yet, is – the murmur of human beings.

Daniel Link
In the presentation of his last cinematographic exercise, Apuntes para una biografía imaginaria, Edgardo Cozarinsky stays corrected and states that his work, which he is (and for a good cause) reluctant to call “film”, was not exactly intimate, but clandestine. No other adjective could fit this film more perfectly as Apuntes para una biografía imaginaria seems to start at the same place (that favorable twist) that Ernst Jnger -leading role in La guerra de un solo hombre, another Cozarinsky’ s film – defined as the only possible space for his (and our) times.

Apuntes para una biografía imaginaria is constructed with what remains (as are other post cinematographic monuments, such as: Hurlements en faveur de Sadeo Histoire(s) du cinéma). However, unlike in those films, Cozarinsky (who will only accept his name to be mentioned at one of those productions) assumes all the consequences of the fact that nowadays we all discover ourselves being what remains. It is not, then, about the retrieval of waste of other films (sequences that were left out or can be re signified in a different context) nor is it a photomontage put together in a collector’s rush. Cozarinsky presents his Apuntes… (deliberately articulated in a spiral of time going back and forth) not like a thing from the past, not as memories or testimonies that should be saved from oblivion; but almost as a sabbatical holiday: the suspension of time and activity; not work but the in-operation and un-creation. The situation of being what remains, which Cozarinsky puts both him and ourselves in (as spectators of his non-film and post-cinematographic exercise – I am aware that, in this context, the word “avant-garde” is not useful at all) is that of what is imminent: Apuntes para una biografía imaginaria is the present tense coming after the last day, a time where nothing can happen because the new is still in course. That is the time tension of what is imminent. The remains are also a wake-up call: Isn’t that what those constant loves in front of Cozarinsky’ s camera lens have been forced to interpret? What they hear and what they react to (for better or for worse) is a small tune, a small tune that holds the secret of the film, establishing its internal coherence, and which remembrance but most of all the imagination (what are they thinking? Why do they cry?) dance to. Cozarinsky is well aware of the fact that there is no more cinema (in a cinematographic sense to say the least) and proves it with his not intimate but clandestine Apuntes (some would say: tactic maneuvers have better remain unknown). It is not a film but a kind of exercise that serves the purpose of developing an ascesis: a spiritual exercise. Nothing is past in these Apuntes because the only temporality that they recognize as such is that of a continuous present. This is why there is no proper filmmaker behind this exercise but a survivor, a writer without a reader, a poet without its people. Those are some of the reasons that make Apuntes para una biografía imaginaria a post cinematographic “masterpiece”. So far there has not been many like it and I don’t believe there will be many more, at least not with the intensity that Cozarinsky has known to imprint.

David Oubiña
Apuntes para una biografía imaginaria is, as it should be, a film both melancholic and smart. There is, in fact, a sort of portrait done with the remains of a shipwreck. This is what the filmmaker’s voice says. One should not expect that the notes on one’s own biography are formed by the most significant moments, but, to the contrary, by pieces that suddenly scintillate perceiving a moment of danger, as Benjamin wanted. That was without a doubt the challenge of this beautiful and fleeting film. That is what is admirable about his notes; the forgotten moments, secondary, not stellar, are suddenly charged with a new vitality (that was not there before and at the same time was – now we know – at the original context). With those materials, Edgardo Cozarinsky shapes a moving story in scorso.

Sunday 30th May, 2.00 – 8.00 pm

Admission: $ 10
auditorio@proa.org
More information >>

Program:
2.00 pm:
Come Cretinetti paga i debiti. André Deed. 1910, 6′
Come fu che l’ingordigia rovino il natale di Cretinetti. André Deed. 1910, 11 ‘
Amor Pedestre. Marcel Fabre. 1914, 8′
Das Stahltier. Willy Zielke. 1935, 15′
L’Uomo meccanico . André Deed
. 1921, 25′
Pacific 231 . Jean Mitry
. 1949, 12 ‘

3.30 pm:
Velocità (Vitesse). Tina Cordero, Guido Martina, Pippo Oriani. 1930, 16′
Ballet mécanique. Fernand Léger, Dudley Murphy
. 1923,18′
Jeux des reflets et de la vitesse. Henri Chomette. 1933, 7′
Thais. Anton Giulio Bragaglia. 1916, 35 ‘

5.00 pm:
Come Cretinetti paga i debiti. André Deed. 1910, 6′
Come fu che l’ingordigia rovino il natale di Cretinetti. André Deed. 1910, 11 ‘
Amor Pedestre. Marcel Fabre. 1914, 8′
Das Stahltier. Willy Zielke. 1935, 15′
L’Uomo meccanico . André Deed
. 1921, 25′
Pacific 231 . Jean Mitry
. 1949, 12 ‘

6.30 pm:
Velocità (Vitesse). Tina Cordero, Guido Martina, Pippo Oriani. 1930, 16′
Ballet mécanique. Fernand Léger, Dudley Murphy
. 1923,18′
Jeux des reflets et de la vitesse. Henri Chomette. 1933, 7′
Thais. Anton Giulio Bragaglia. 1916, 35 ‘

Films synopsis

Amor Pedestre (Love afoot), 1914. Dir. Marcel Fabre. 10′
Illustrates the story of an accidental love triangle from a peculiar point of view: the feet. During his morning walk, Robinet (main character played by Fabre himself) encounters a young girl and decides to court her. Despite her rejecting him, Robinet slips a note on his shoe imploring to meet him later on. Back home, the note slips out of her shoe and is found by her angry husband who decides to show up at the date to meet Robinet.

Ballet mécanique (Mechanic ballet), 1923. Dir. Fernand Léger and Dudley Murphy. 14 ‘
Is a caleidoscope of images paired up with an electric soundtrack. The film accounts for a constantly moving world dominated by mechanic and repetitive images combined with moments of solitude spent in a garden. A young girl swings in a garden; another girl smiles. The takes alternate rotating cylinders, turbines, and kitchen objects arranged in a concentric form. Over and over again, a woman climbs a flight of stairs carrying a bag over her shoulder. An art-deco figure appears, dancing.

Come Cretinetti paga i debiti (How Foolshead pays his debts), 1909. Dir. André Deed. 6’
Interpreted by director André Deed, Cretinetti (Foolshead) is the main character in a series of entertaining futurist short films; in which this buffoon sets himself to destroy everything that steps in his way. This time, Cretinetti is a compulsive debtor, persecuted by collectors that invade his apartment floor forcing him to pay his debts. The film focuses on Foolshead’ s adventures when he tries unsuccessfully to get rid of them and escape the law.

Come fu che l’ingordigia rovinò il Natale a Cretinetti (Foolshead’s Christmas), 1910. Dir. André Deed. 11’
In this take of André Deed’s comic saga, Cretinetti gets in trouble when he tries to post his Christmas party invitations in the mail. Because of him taking so long, a furious crowd waiting in line behind him calls the police to kick him out. Cretinetti purchases a tree to attack a public building and clumsily sets it on fire. He walks back to his house with the blazing tree where his family and friends await.

Das Stahltier (The Steel animal), 1935. Dir. Willy Otto Zielke. 15’
The railway workers wait outside for the factory doors to open and for another workday to begin. Inside, engineer Klaassen staid overnight working on some drafts for a new locomotive. As a result of the team’s hard work, the project comes together and Klaasen gets a promotion. Before leaving for his job, he meets up with his co-workers and has second thoughts regarding his decision. Their conversation revolves around the stories of the evolution of the railway industry and its pioneers.

Jeux des reflets et de la vitesse (Games on reflection and speed), 1933. Dir. Henri Chomette. 6’
Captures the impressions on the city of Paris; experimenting with light and movement through the camera lens.

L’Uomo meccanico (The mechanic man), 1921. Dir. André Deed. 24′
This film is a parody of serials; more precisely of one: “Master Mystery”, a thriller premiered a year before. Driven by an evil but beautiful women, the mechanic man tears down doors and walls obsessed with destroying everything that sets in its way. Saltarello, a marginal but loveable character that spends his time escaping the police, fights him. Scenes like the one where the robot persecutes a car or the duel between two robots which ends with dancing, have a very kitsch sense of humour.

Pacific 231 , 1949. Dir. Jean Mitry. 12′
Pacific 231 is both the name of the leading role locomotive and the critic and cinema theorist Jean Mitry’s short film. If the engine is the star of the action, the Swiss French composer Arthur Honegger’s music play is the protagonist of the soundtrack. This particular conjunction of cinema, music and machine produces a masterpiece, given the passion for engines that the director and composer share.

Thaïs, 1916. Dir. Anton Giulio Bragaglia. 54′
Narrates the adventures of Bianca, a “femme fatale” that plays and uses his admirers to satisfy her whims and selfish purposes. The highlight of the film is the final scene: a tragic finale where the heroine is punished for her wrongdoings.

Velocità (Velocity), 1930. Dir. Tina Cordero, Guido Martina, Pippo Oriani. 12 ‘
Captures the city dynamism combining rotating views, whirling machines, articulated mannequins and the homage to several 20th century artists such as Boccioni, Mondrian, Léger and Kandinsky. All these elements are brought together by futurist painter Oriani and the collaboration of writers Cordero and Martina.

Duration: 60 minutes

Sunday 23th May, 5.00pm

Ballet mécanique, 1923. Dir. F. Léger y D. Murphy. 18′
Jeux des reflets et de la vitesse, 1933. Dir. H. Chomette. 7′
Thaïs, 1916. Dir. Anton Giulio Bragaglia. 35′

Films synopsis

Ballet mécanique (Mechanic ballet), 1923. Dir. Fernand Léger and Dudley Murphy. 18′
Is a caleidoscope of images paired up with an electric soundtrack. The film accounts for a constantly moving world dominated by mechanic and repetitive images combined with moments of solitude spent in a garden. A young girl swings in a garden; another girl smiles. The takes alternate rotating cylinders, turbines, and kitchen objects arranged in a concentric form. Over and over again, a woman climbs a flight of stairs carrying a bag over her shoulder. An art-deco figure appears, dancing.

Jeux des reflets et de la vitesse (Games on reflection and speed), 1933. Dir. Henri Chomette. 7’
Captures the impressions on the city of Paris; experimenting with light and movement through the camera lens.

Thaïs, 1916. Dir. Anton Giulio Bragaglia. 35′
Narrates the adventures of Bianca, a “femme fatale” that plays and uses his admirers to satisfy her whims and selfish purposes. The highlight of the film is the final scene: a tragic finale where the heroine is punished for her wrongdoings.

Admission: $ 6
auditorio@proa.org
More information >>