BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (JTA) — Israel is the country of honor at the 16th Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival.
The festival will feature Israeli films, an Israeli filmmaker serving on the jury and a retrospective of director Uri Zohar. It begins on April 2 with a gala opening ceremony and the screening of the latest film by Ari Folman, “The Congress,” a co-production of Israel, Germany, Poland, Luxemburg and Belgium.
Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid will serve on the jury of the international competition with Eduardo Antin of Argentina, Serge Bozon of France, Ilda Santiago of Brazil and David Zellner of the United States.
Israeli films will be shown in nine venues across the city during the 11 days of the festival.
“These theaters are completely full of curious audiences who have both the enthusiasm to discover new films and the critical spirit to measure them, a kind of devotion for cinema which has become, unfortunately, too rare around the globe, and at the same time this eagerness to analyze it and to raise intelligent, and demanding questions,” Lapid told JTA before leaving for Buenos Aires.
Lapid won the best film trophy with “Policeman” at the film festival in 2012 as well as best director.
The Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival is one of the largest in Latin America. More than 370,000 tickets were sold for the 2013 edition.
