the management of Luis Puenzo at the head of the National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts, ended as many of the efforts in the organization end: in scandal. Alejandro Cacetta, president of the INCAA During the first year of Mauricio Macri’s administration, he left the organization denounced by the same government, amid accusations of “very egregious irregularities”.
The former deputy for the Front for Victory (FpV) Liliana Mazurwas processed in 2017 for appointments in the INCAA, but dismissed in 2019: a report from the General Auditor of the Nation (AGN) with the signature of Ricardo Echegaray, former number one of the AFIP, reported the irregularities in his management between 2008 and 2012.
Same fate as Lucrecia Cardosopresident of INCAA until 2015 and today secretary of Cultural Development of the Ministry of Culture of the Nation (and possible heiress of a Bauer also questioned), who was prosecuted by the late judge Claudio Bonadio.
Exit
Luis Puenzo, winner of the Oscar in 1986 with “The Official Story”, became president of the autarchic body in 2019, with the chorus of applause from the film industry. He represented for Albertism the counterpart of the other Oscar winner, Juan José Campanella, a hard anti-Kirchnerist.
But, “Puenzo believed the autarchy”, they explain in Culture. The INCAA is one of the most tyrannical parastatal organisms. On the one hand, it is under the purview of the ministry headed by Bauer, author of the documentary “Tierra arrasada” that was the banner of the Kirchner campaign in 2019. And that was the first crossroads: “Puenzo stood up and said: ‘I choose my team‘, but ended up putting Nico Batlle as second, who told Tristán everything that happened inside”, they say at the Institute.
On the other hand, the INCAA It feeds a large part of the local industry, and is the main source of support for small production companies, and for the court of directors and actors close to the ruling party, many of whom have been asking for Puenzo’s head for a long time for having turned off the tap. .
And the situation detonated last week when a protest by workers and unions ended with a police scuffle. Bauer appeared at the INCAA offices to take control, and although Puenzo wanted to resist, Alberto Fernández ended up running him with a decree.
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“I was at the demonstration yesterday, we were asking that Puenzo resign who came out saying that his plan for INCAA was not yet finished. And the truth is that in these two and a half years we don’t know what it was, because we saw the Institute totally inactive. It nearly killed the independent sector”, claimed film director and producer Aníbal Garisto.
“We had the need to make ourselves heard. We had little relationship with Puenzo’s management and that is why we came to demonstrate. We were never clear about what his plan was,” he agreed in radio statements. vanessa ragonepresident of the Argentine Chamber of the Film Industry, one of the names that sounded like a replacement for the deposed one.
“I don’t think Ragone grabs, he’s doing very well producing. In the industry, nobody who is doing well today is left to manage INCAA”, points out another well-known film producer. “Most likely, Batlle will continue, under Bauer’s control. It is clear that what happened at INCAA was part of the internal between albertismo and cristinismo. It is true that Puenzo was bitter, but they made him pay a bill that was not his”, points out the same producer.
But for smaller producers, the look is different. “In 2020, with the pandemic, INCAA did not spend all the money it hadand the industry was paralyzed”, said Garisto.
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Puenzo had 2.4 billion At the end of 2019, 50% of that should go to development, but the president of INCAA “was guilty of excessive prudence,” they assured from the agency. The filmmaker did not execute that money. “He did not know when money was going to enter again and he protected the box,” they explained.
“He gave money to SICA (the Argentine Film Industry Union) and Actors (ed: chaired by Alejandra Darín, who was criticized during the pandemic for not raising her voice), and he thought he was armored”, they counted. But Puenzo earned the anger of other sectors that he never served.
“Among others Doca, a group of independent filmmakers who are the movie picketers. They make little movies of any police repression, and they acted as a shock force in the demonstration the other day together with people from ATE, which only has 10% of the INCAA plant, but runs a more crooked line than those from UPCN,” he explained. another producer close to Puenzo.
Today Doca calls for a march in front of Congress for April 28 to avoid the cultural blackout. It is that although Culture and Bauer set up their parallel INCAA in 2021 with Reborn Audiovisual (with a budget of 2,400 million pesos), an independent sector is excluded in a new round that today favors products with more audience and a nod to streaming as a replacement for theaters, a format that has grown old.
