My Filmography/My journey

• In Event: Jewish Argentinian Films: Conversations with Gabriel Lichtmann (Spanish)

Abstract

My films have been pigeonholed within the doubtful label of "Jewish cinema," a category that groups together diverse directors and films whose only common denominator is their focus on themes related to Jewish history, characters who profess Judaism or live in the State of Israel, adaptations of classic Hebrew literature, documentaries about the Holocaust or Zionism... and so on. All these expressions of the Jewish experience fit within the vast category of Jewish film.
Many times I have wondered what my connection to this label is. It is true that my films include Jewish characters and scenes that take place during community festivities or celebrations; and in The Red Star, which is a “mockumentary”, I even allowed myself to rewrite history, inventing a fictional character (Laila Salama) who supposedly participated in several historical events of great importance, such as the capture of Adolf Eichmann in Argentina. This led me to fool the audience and win an award at a Jewish film festival because, according to the jury, the film “brought back to light a little known character from Jewish history.”
The truth is, I consider myself an atheist and cosmopolitan, I don’t actively practice any religion, and I’m against all forms of nationalisms. I often wonder: Why do I write scripts that touch upon Jewish life then? While discussing the topic of this presentation with Daniela Goldfine and Mirna Vohnsen, I came to a possible conclusion: I have a deep appreciation for the contributions of the Jewish culture of the Diaspora during the twentieth century, especially for the contributions of American cinema. The films of directors like Ernst Lubitsch, Billy Wilder, or Woody Allen, among others, have had a big influence on my work. That said, I have also been influenced by twentieth-century writers who have shaped Argentinian culture, like Jorge Luis Borges. In a way, The Red Star is the clearest expression of this, it is a mockumentary inspired by Woody Allen’s Zelig and Borges’s “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote.” The presentation will tap into all of these issues.

Author

• Gabriel Lichtmann