The Absences (2023)

The life of Juan José Gorasurreta is pierced by images. In his new feature film, the historic film society programmer appropriates the films that made him in order to find new relationships and patterns and thus generate a convergence between his personal life, that of Argentina and that of cinema. In The Absences his travels coexist with Orson Welles, activism, Fernando Birrri, the Cordobazo, his studies, Eva Landeck, family, Carlos Echeverría, the Trelew Massacre, Nagisa Ōshima, censorship, film societies, the Malvinas war, his short films. The randomness of this list vanishes as the film progresses, and gives way to a synapse that is as logical as it is moving. “It is a portrait on how Argentine history and my encounter with films designed my sensitive areas” —as he did with his own story, no one could define The Absences better than Gorasurreta himself.