Mute Fire | 5th Latin American Film Festival

[Spanish and Latin American Studies]

Good afternoon all,

Please join us for the next screening of the Fifth Latin American Film Festival, Mute Fire (PIROTECNIA) (Federico Atehortúa Arteaga / Colombia / 2020 / 83 min). The film will be screened in person at the Kitchener Public Library theatre (KPL Central Branch, 85 Queen Street North) on Wednesday, Nov.1st at 6:30 PM. Professor David Rozotto will provide a brief introduction to the film and lead a post-screening discussion with the audience. Interested? Watch the trailer here: https://vimeo.com/656744901

If you plan on attending, please register for the film: https://www.kpl.org/programs-and-events/event-listing/register?&eventID=5220

The film will also be available online for streaming<https://pragda.com/sfc-event/sfc-university-of-waterloo/> for one week. See below for details.

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About the film.  “In the tradition of Harun Farocki and João Moreira Salles, in this personal film essay, Federico Atehortúa Arteaga examines the relationship between film footage, the events of the war in Colombia, his family’s story, and the origins of cinema in the country.

On March 6, 1906, four people were executed in the streets for the attempted assassination of the then-president of Colombia, Rafael Reyes. The representation in images of this event is considered the beginning of cinema in Colombia. Arteaga embarks on a deep investigation of media representation through his film, which explores how cinema became an instrument of power and control in the country’s violent political history.

As Arteaga’s mother suffers an episode of mutism -without any explanation she stops talking-, the film’s focus widens to examine the family’s own relationship with imagery, memory, and politics. As a result, Arteaga decides to investigate the family’s past and finds a video archive of a children’s play in which he himself acts, pretending to be a captured false guerrilla.

These images bring him back to his original film and lead him to find the relationship that exists between recent tragic events in Colombian history, the false positives, innocent people extrajudicially killed by members of the Colombian army, and then falsely labeled as enemy combatants. Nobody knows exactly how many young people became false positives. The most recent report released by Colombia’s attorney general’s office says that between 1988 and 2014, around 2,248 people were killed. Previous reports by human rights organizations have estimated that the number may be 5,000 OR EVEN HIGHER.”- PRAGDA
You can also stream Mute Fire from Nov.1st until Nov.8th from the Festival Portal. For access to the portal and to learn more about the Festival, you can visit the 5th Annual Latin American Film Festival webpage<https://uwaterloo.ca/spanish/5th-annual-latin-american-film-festival-sept-20-nov-15>.
Best wishes,
Kira

-- Kira Youngblut
Administrative Manager, Spanish and Latin American Studies<https://uwaterloo.ca/spanish/>
University of Waterloo
Modern Languages 316

Email: slas at uwaterloo.ca<mailto:slas at uwaterloo.ca>
Phone: 519-888-4567 ext. 43059
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