
Invasion 2020’s excellent selection of films will be able to stream across all of Germany –including some movies available for free. Photo: Las Lindas
Invasion, Berlin’s Argentine Film Festival and the first festival in Germany focused exclusively on contemporary Argentine cinema, is reinventing itself online from December 4 – 6. Their selection of films will not only go digital for the whole of Germany for this seventh edition, but many movies will also be available for free through the festival’s website.
A total of eight feature films will be screened in OV with English subs, with the 2020 selection divided into two sections. The first sees two recently produced films – Ezequiel Radusky’s Planta Permanente (The Lunchroom) and Clarisa Navas’ Las Mil Y Una (One In A Thousand) – debut at the festival, followed by live Q&A sessions with the directors. Both can be seen on the 4th and 5th, respectively, for the modest sum of €3 each.
One In A Thousand is the second feature by Navas and opened the Panorama section at this year’s Berlinale. It’s a coming-of-age queer film set in a community of project houses, following 17-year old Iris’ exploration of sexuality when she meets Renata. It’s a fiction feature with the soul of a documentary, focusing not just on Iris’ story but on the everyday experience in Corrientes, Navas’ beautifully shot neighbourhood. The film poignantly evokes the lurking sense of hostility against the queer community in a conservative small town and is well worth splashing out for.
As for The Lunchroom, it’s second film by Ezequiel Radusky, whose first feature (Los Dueños – The Owners) was screened at the 52nd Semaine de la Critique in Cannes. It presents a clash between two women, Lila and Marcela; tensions arise when the former becomes the head of the cafeteria in a provincial municipality building, leaving the latter envious of her new status.
The festival’s second section is composed of free screenings of six films that were selected from each of Invasion’s previous editions, available during the whole weekend. Each film will be specially presented by their directors. Our top pick in this section of free streams is the 2016 documentary Las Lindas (The Pretty Ones), a personal and playful essay from filmmaker Melisa Liebenthal, who won the Bright Future Award at the Rotterdam International Film Festival for her efforts. She interviews her friends and reconstructs her childhood and teenage years through photos in order to reflect on the expectations that society imposes on young women. It’s a thought-provoking and frequently humorous piece that interrogates the construction of the feminine gender and the notion of beauty within a culture that celebrates images in order to shape identity.