Porque mis amigos se fueron a Europa (en)

Porqué mis amigos se fueron a Europa

Selection: 

Director: 

Juan Diego Kantor

Country: 

  • Argentina

Format: 

Feature film

Type: 

Documentary

Film exhibited in Toulouse: 

 

Looking for the huemul
Choice Documentary - Cinelatino, Rencontres de Toulouse 2013
Competition Selection Argentina - 27 International Film Festival of Mar del Plata (2012)

 

Foreseen cast: 

-

Script writer(s): 

Juan Diego Kantor

Synopsis: 

It is a comic and surreal documentary with uncertain limits between fiction and reality. Juan Kantor, its filmmaker, is given the chance to relocate a few kilometres away from his hometown, and it is at this moment, when having second thoughts, that he wonders why his friends left for Europe. Juan, through recollections and true recreations, will try to figure out the causes of migration, and in particular, the reason why his friends, went to Europe; a continent with traditions, climates and jobs so different from their home country.His research focuses on three main mass exoduses that have shaped Argentinian history.On the one side, he studies the migration flow of the 50’s, after the visit of his uncle, now an American citizen, who explains to him the reason of his own migration during the first period of Perón.
The second migration flow consists of the forced exile of the 70’s, which took the protagonist’s Peronist parents abroad to safeguard their lives and to become parents of Juan Diego Kantor.

In the third part of the film, Juan contacts his friends who emigrated to Europe in 2001, in order to put an end to his search and discover the meaning of these journeys, which left families and traditions behind, often to risk their freedom as illegal immigrants.
"Why my friends went to Europe”, presents us with a filmmaker experiencing different migration flows. The son of migrant parents, who at an early age had himself to migrate from Italy to Argentina to undergo the exodus of his loved ones twenty years later. That way, the character of Juan Kantor, presents to us a personal look at his life story, which is different generations intertwined with the stories of three.

Visual concept: 

Why my friends went to Europe” is an author documentary, in which the filmmaker as character, reviews and analyses reality. The use of the voice-over and flashbacks, showing past events in his life, not only help as a narrative visual aid, but also adds meaning to the building process of the character of Juan Kantor, an Argentinian stereotype. The mass media are used to introduce the exiled characters and complete the lonely image of Juan, who was left alone in the country and satirises all the introduced exiles migrating 15 minutes away from his hometown. The camera accompanies Juan and passes unnoticed. However, there are moments when the character bares a degree of complicity with the public, through personal appearances and monologues to camera. The music is composed by the filmmaker, who plays some of the ”the bad music tracks” on the film.
This product could be comparable to “Aprile” by Nanni Moretti, “Super size me” by Morgan Spurlock, “Roger and me” by Michael Moore or “A complete history of my sexual failures” by Chris Waitt.