By Andrés Levinson

For some time now, we have been working on the rescue, preservation, and access of animated films made in Argentina during the 20th century. Some of these films were more well-known at the time than others, with some creators producing relatively extensive works and earning a prominent place in the field of animation, while others made only a few films with limited circulation. However, in most cases, these films are now almost entirely forgotten or unknown, especially to the younger generations. The aim of this project has been to bring them back to life, so to speak, not because we are dealing with masterpieces—though some certainly deserve that label—but because they are part of the history of Argentine cinema, and we believe it is always good and interesting to be familiar with the works that preceded us in the field we are currently engaged in. Additionally, and perhaps this is the only truly important aspect, there is an aesthetic pleasure in each of these films that makes it worthwhile to retrieve them from the storage vaults where they have been kept for so many years.

The selected shorts, with the exception of Víctor Iturralde and Luis Bras’s films (provided by Fernando M. Peña), are part of the Buenos Aires Museum of Cinema’s archive. The chronological order (which will not be strictly followed) suggests starting with Adventures of Julián Centeya, the work of Juan Oliva, a Catalan-born artist initially trained by Quirino Cristiani. In the 1930s, Oliva worked as a cartoonist for various print media, including the magazine Cine Argentino by Antonio Ángel Díaz, where he created the character Pepito Celuloide, a comic strip based on cinema themes. Julián Centeya was produced by the newsreel Sucesos Argentinos, owned by Díaz, for the “Filmoteca Argentina” series. Its release took place sometime between late 1940 and 1941 at the Astor and Porteño cinemas. Unfortunately, the film’s soundtrack by Leopoldo Sciamarella has been lost. Centeya is part of the rich gaucho tradition that, particularly in comics, Oliva began to define with El Gaucho Rendija, a comic strip with similar style and humor. Like Rendija, Centeya suffers the vicissitudes of a gaucho in the modern city, a classic theme of Creole humor.

The three short films by José Burone Bruché, two of which feature his character Contreras and one featuring the clown Pamplino, were recently rescued in digital versions from 16mm prints. Burone Bruché worked as an illustrator for various print media such as El Hogar and La Novela Semanal during the 1930s and 1940s while also developing advertising comics. In 1942, he was called by EMELCO studios to replace Juan Oliva in directing the company’s animated film division. There, he created two significant series: the first, Los Consejos del Viejo Vizcacha, now lost, where he adapted stanzas from José Hernández’s Martín Fierro; and the second, Animated Proverbs, produced in 1947, which were recovered by the Museum of Cinema for this project.

In 1948, he founded his own production company, América, with the support of SINCCA Films, along with his core team, Pablo J. Leiva, scriptwriter and chief filming technician, and Francisco Blanco, set designer. Together, they created the film The Discovery of America, also lost, and a series of shorts between 1951 and 1952, featuring two moderately successful characters: Contreras, the man who always contradicts everything, and the clown Pamplino. If there was ever a character in Argentine cinema who was notoriously difficult, it was Contreras. It’s not necessary to elaborate on his main characteristic, already evident in his name, but it’s safe to say that El Contra, a successful television character created by Juan Carlos Calabró in the 1980s, would seem mild in comparison if we placed them side by side.

Bruché’s drawing style, like Oliva’s, was initially classical and anthropomorphic, in the tradition established by Walt Disney, which influenced much of that generation of artists. However, that classicism began to shift, particularly with more twisted creations like Contreras, toward the realm of adult comic strips, where Bruché seemed much more at ease and inspired than when he was constrained by the conventionalism required by the animated proverbs characters created for CINEPA.

In the following decades, a series of filmmakers emerged who deliberately moved away from traditional drawing and even from the camera as a tool for animation.

Frequently associated with the remarkable filmmaker Norman McLaren, Luis Bras and Víctor Iturralde Rúa experimented with the technique of direct or camera-less filmmaking, without initially being aware of the Canadian’s work. Both developed a series of surprising shorts by drawing or scratching directly on the surface of the film material. Bras expanded the boundaries of what was possible for reduced formats like Super 8 to such an extent that it’s difficult to describe the nearly obsessive work involved in creating films like Toc-Toc or The Thief of Colors, conceptual, abstract, and beautiful works. Iturralde, on the other hand, drew with fluidity and technical precision a series of luminous and occasionally colorful landscapes that seem to flow from frame to frame, constructing and deconstructing small worlds in a matter of seconds. Perfectly articulated, they can tell a story or discard it with the same spontaneity. From Bras, we will see perhaps his most celebrated film, Bongo Rock (1969), scratched on 35mm film, while from Iturralde, we will see Petrolita (1958), also his most well-known work, and Duerme Liebrecita (1956), a beautiful color fable recently rediscovered by Fernando M. Peña. In this same line of work, we include La Cumparsita by the Tucuman filmmaker Bernardo Vides Almonacid, a remarkable animated choreography set to the eternal tango by Rodríguez Matos.

Simón Feldman was one of the most important directors of the Generation of the 60s, the group of young filmmakers who renewed Argentine cinema at the beginning of that decade. Los de la Mesa Diez (1960) was his most important film. Throughout his career, he occasionally but very interestedly devoted himself to animated filmmaking, experimenting with various techniques. The feature film Los Cuatro Secretos (1976) and the short films Happy End (1982), El Zorro y los Presumidos (1975), and Caraballo Mató un Gallo (1983) share the technique of cut-out animation, animated frame by frame. We will have the opportunity to see El Zorro y los Presumidos, a little-known film made possible with the support of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Within the same technique, and almost secret, are the shorts by Rodolfo de Luca, which seem to anticipate the popular character Zamba, widely known from Argentine public television in recent years. De Luca created a character, Perico, who, like Zamba, participates in various key episodes of Argentine history. In this case, he accompanies Martín Miguel de Güemes in defending Buenos Aires during the English invasions. This is intriguing, among other reasons, because this is not the most well-known aspect of Güemes’ military career. Later, Perico joins José de San Martín in the campaign for Peru.

Lastly, El Día del Caramelo (1976) by Héctor “Kalondi” Compaired, also made for the National Endowment for the Arts, is one of those small masterpieces that, for some unknown reason, remain out of sight. Kalondi was an architect, cartoonist, and graphic humorist, one of the very good ones in Argentina during the 1960s. He published in Primera Plana, 4 Patas, Tía Vicenta, and Satiricón, among others. He died young in 1998. El Día del Caramelo reveals a diversity of drawing and animation techniques; it is a true visual collage, which also displays his acidic yet refined humor. Comparable to the excellent short film Compacto Cupé by Catú (Jorge Martín), a contemporary of his, it diverges from absurdity to precisely highlight the dissonances of the world we inhabit.