On Easter Sunday we will present a daylong, open-ended, collaborative and community screening of Octavio Getino and Fernando Solanas’ The Hour of the Furnaces. In organizing such an event the usual questions arise: what does a film about Argentina mean to us in the United States; what does a film from 1968 mean to us in 2010; and, more broadly, what is the function of a political film, a revolutionary cinema, in our contemporary cultural political and digitally mediated landscape.

The Hour of the Furnaces is historically seen as a benchmark, a landmark, of militant cinema; but with that it also becomes a remnant of a certain time and a place, a relic of a long-since-passed Zeitgeist. The danger
comes from the potential of presenting a memorial service; that the ceremonial structure of such an event will be an acting out, an anachronism.

The film’s tone, scope, scale, and exhibition demands necessitate a certain theatricality. Furnaces has a 4-hour running time, and three distinct parts with built-in intermissions designed for audience participation and open discussion. We will discuss all of this with a focus on the present. Coffee, tea, juice, bagels, and a simple brunch will be available throughout the day.

–The Hour of the Furnaces: Notes and Testimonies on Neocolonialism, Violence and Liberation -

Octavio Getino & Fernando Ezequiel Solanas,
1968, 230 minutes
TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 230 minutes | Digital Projection