Vida comienza, vida termina

Die ältere Tochter reagiert wiederholt genervt, wenn ihr Vater sie mit seiner Kamera aufnimmt, aber der ist nun einmal Filmemacher und kann nicht anders. „Kino bedeutet, den Tod bei der Arbeit zu filmen“, hat Jean Cocteau gesagt. Rafael Palacio Illingworth geht einen Schritt weiter, indem er demonstriert, wie man filmend die brutale Realität des Todes konfrontieren und eine Art Katharsis erreichen kann; wobei er immerhin so ehrlich ist, auch die Produktionsmechanismen (Casting, Musik, Requisiten usw.) zum Thema zu machen. Doch so wird die private Tragödie zum Kunstwerk, Wirklichkeit und Fiktion gehen ineinander über – und Trauerarbeit wird geleistet. (Ferdinand Keller)

In Anwesenheit von Rafael Palacio Illingworth.

Argentinian poet Fabian Casas wrote that everything which rots forms a family. There are two families in this film, each mirroring the other, but time is not there to orchestrate a decomposition. When things end abruptly and unintentionally, they leave a void that resembles a cliff; a movement suddenly cut, like jumping off a spinning carousel and finding the stillness of the ground profoundly disorienting.
This is the exact feeling produced by VIDA COMIENZA, VIDA TERMINA. A man builds a life with a woman and tragedy strikes. What can be done? He had been writing a film, and suddenly both fiction and life start to merge. There is the fictional portrait of the Argentinian pampa, embodied by a gaucho drowning in an economy about to be destroyed, while his wife is consumed by absolute sadness. There is also the documentary portrait of a man who records his family constantly, each moment so precious, while his wife is slowly eaten up by a tumor. A film like an exorcism, an exercise in creating a mirror of one’s experience to be able to understand and, if not to heal, at least to be able to create something in full detail, form, and sentiment, to be the one who decides when and how to destroy it for once. (Lucía Salas)

In the presence of Rafael Palacio Illingworth.

Rafael Palacio Illingworth: SANTA (2006, K), ONE ABOUT LOVE (2008, K), THE HEART OF A ROBOT (2008, K), THE THREE OF US (2008, K), GUERILLA GARDEN (2009, K), MACHO (2009,), MAN IN A ROOM (2010, K), BETWEEN US (2016)