Labios de churrasco

This is an emblematic film because it became, unwittingly, the founding work of the new independent Argentinean cinema, before Martín Rejtman’s RAPADO and Adrián Caetano’s PIZZA, BIRRA, FASO. The opening title – “Ituzaingó, 1994” – is much more than a mere timespace definition for the movie; rather, it represents the invention of a symbolic filmic territory which would last throughout Perrone’s work. Streets, houses, public squares, a video store and a newsstand are the roaming places for the youngsters – creatures trapped inside an eternal present devoid of any projects – portrayed in this profile of a neighborhood. The protagonists’ social and political disenfranchisement is as blatant as the deep sense of friendship that protects them. The recurring use of iris shots, an obsession with the sky over Ituzaingó, and a peculiar way to understand the relation between spaces and emotional life are already present in this early, groundbreaking work. A filmmaker and a surveyor, Perrone had to measure and trace first the limits of Ituzaingó in order to know how to film it in forthcoming years.

In the presence of Pablo Ratto (producer).