Shifting over to the festival’s innovative New Frontier section for this last day of 2014 Sundance doc profiles: Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat’s LIVING STARS, in which everyday Argentines dance.
Sundance Program Description:
In Buenos Aires, they are dancing. Dozens of real people, identified simply by name and occupation, are presented in their kitchens, living rooms, offices, and streets—each dancing to a fairly well-known pop song. Young and old, alone and with others, they perform for the camera with a rawness usually only reserved for the bathroom mirror. This is LIVING STARS.
While some dancers are very impressive—like a young boy who fully commits to his enactment of David Guetta’s “Titanium,” with the help of monkey bars—others are less so. Regardless, each performer embodies his or her given song with such complete abandonment, that the resulting joy is infectious. Filmmakers Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat eschew traditional narrative for a surprisingly elegant mise-en-scène. Their deliberate editing and eye for authentic, honest performances deliver a truly uplifting cinematic experience. The people of Buenos Aires dance for themselves, but in LIVING STARS, they also dance for us.
Some Background:
Cohn and Duprat return to Park City for the second time, following their dramatic feature, THE MAN NEXT DOOR (2010, world cinema cinematography award). After meeting at an experimental video festival in 1993, they began to collaborate, creating the interactive program Televisión Abierta in 1999, followed by other shows; founding and directing the cultural television channel Ciudad Abierta in 2003; and several films – documentary, narrative, and experimental. Two of the project’s editors, Jerónimo Carranza and Klaus Borges Baz, also cut THE MAN NEXT DOOR.
Why You Should Watch:
A sort of YouTube performance clipreel writ large, Cohn and Duprat’s staged, non-narrative documentary has a simple concept, but one beautifully realized and immediately smile-inducing. Roque Silles’ stationary camera expertly captures each carefully composed scene – from dentist’s office to front yard, living room to playground – with backgrounds – and background subjects – often providing as much interest as the featured amateur performers.
More Info:
Should they become available, I’ll link to the film’s website, Cohn & Duprat’s Meet the Artist Sundance video profile, and to their Indiewire filmmaker interview. For screening dates and times at Sundance, click the link in the first paragraph.
To experience the festival through the eyes of this year’s filmmakers, follow my Sundance filmmaker class of 2014 Twitter list.
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