Cinema
The Hour of the Furnaces
La hora de los hornos
Synopsis
A documentary fresco in three parts on dependence and liberation, centred on the dictatorship and repression in Argentina from 1945 to 1968, according to the Cannes Film Festival; the first part is titled “Neocolonialism and Violence”. Il Cinema Ritrovato describes a montage of newsreels, interviews, documentary footage, reconstructions, photographs, advertisements and collages, set against Hollywood spectacle, with a phrase by Frantz Fanon displayed beneath the screen.
Context
Shot from 1966 to 1968 by its two directors, according to Il Cinema Ritrovato, the film was made clandestinely, and Solanas made sixty copies of it, distributed to workers' organisations and students, reports the Cannes festival website. Banned by all the dictatorships, it was shown in more than seventy countries. It was shown abroad for the first time in Italy, in June 1968. The national film institute restored it in 2018, and the first part was presented at Cannes Classics.
Who it is for
A documentary in Spanish of about four hours, in three parts, best seen over several sittings rather than in one go.
Prizes and reception
Its authors were carried in triumph by the Pesaro audience, according to the Cinémathèque de Bologna; restored fifty years later.
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