Latin America: Estrellas

Argentina – Buenos Aires

Federico León (b. 1975), one of South America’s most significant artists, has created a harsh, caustic, anthropocentric theatre whose narrative horizon is co-formed out of fiction and reality. In this, his first visit to Greece, he will participate in the Transitions festival with a talk about his work, an experimental theatre workshop and the film “Estrellas” (“Stars”, 2007).

The film is a fiction-documentary in which the residents of a Buenos Aires slum realize they can earn a living in the industry of the spectacle simply by playing themselves. Filmed entirely in the dirt-poor Villa Miseria 21, “Estrellas” chronicles the shanty town’s transformation into a film set. And as the ‘garbage folk’ metamorphose into film stars, León seems to be inviting us to ponder this: Is putting poverty in the limelight the new ‘exotic fruit’ of contemporary sentimental capitalism? In other words, might poverty have a market price as an ‘artistic product’? If so, can poverty benefit from its marketability? Because, if it can, a shanty town could suddenly acquire a touch of… Hollywood glamour!