A professional without borders: The case of the documentary film-maker Carlos Echeverría in Germany and Argentina

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article addresses the post-dictatorship Argentine documentary film-making activity from the standpoint of documentary film-maker Carlos Echeverría's line of work. In particular, we try to closely follow Echeverría's documentary production—his experience in Germany, as well as the distinctive production and distribution modalities of his art—in light of the circumstances posed by the documentary professionalization process insinuated during the mid-1980s in Argentina, which gradually gained visibility during the mid-1990s.In general terms, the analysis will try to focus on the reconfiguration of the documentary production field after the military dictatorship and, mainly, in the way the film Juan, como si nada hubiera sucedido (Carlos Echeverría, 1987) establishes important narrative and stylistic turning points, thus condensing certain displacements that will begin to take place as from that moment and which will gain significance and magnitude towards the mid-1990s in Argentina.