Andre Guttfreund, one-man band of Salvadoran cinema
Born on November 6, 1946, André R. Guttfreund is probably the best-known Salvadoran filmmaker today. His mother, an actress, and his father, a diplomat, provided him with a first-rate international training in El Salvador, London and the United States. With a Master of Arts degree from the prestigious American Film Institute Conservatory, he worked in El Salvador and California, producing and teaching. In 1976, he became the first Central American producer to win an Oscar for the film In the Region of Ice, which he co-directed with Peter Werner. Subsequently, Guttfreund pursued his career between his two favorite countries, working in turn for television, as an actor, and as a director on the American films Breach of Contract (1982) and Femme Fatale (1991) with Colin Firth and Lisa Zane. President of the Salvadoran Filmmakers Association in the mid-2010s, he is now helping to promote Salvadoran cinema internationally.
A cinema that continues to make headway, thanks to the media and television education programs set up by the government in the 1970s. But it's in Mexico that Salvadoran filmmaker Tatiana Huezo is building her career as a documentary filmmaker, having emigrated there at the age of four. In 2011, the filmmaker directed her first feature-length documentary El lugar más pequeño, a multi-faceted account of the experience of Salvadorans during the civil war. Winner of the Ariel Awards, Mexico's equivalent of the Oscars, the film toured the world, selected for over fifty festivals. Five years later, Huezo delivers Tempestad, a poignant documentary about two young women who experienced the violence of human trafficking in Mexico. A powerful and necessary film that we invite you to discover, provided you have a strong heart.
You'll also need courage if you tackle the filmography of Marcela Zamora, another Salvadoran director whose international career has led her to be recognized as one of the most influential women in Central America two years running by the famous Forbes magazine. A journalist and documentary filmmaker, Zamora shot her first feature-length documentary in 2010, María en tierra de nadie, in which she revisits the horrors of kidnapping and violence that plague Central America, forcing many people to migrate. More recently, Los Ofendidos (2016) looks back at the torture and state violence suffered by many Salvadorans during the civil war. An edifying documentary, available online.
Another tragic story from Salvadoran cinema: in 2008, the French-Algerian journalist Christian Poveda directed La vida loca, an immersion into the daily life of the Dieciocho neighborhood gang in San Salvador. He was murdered in the same city in 2009, a victim of the violence he portrayed on screen.
Is cinema in El Salvador a sad story? Not necessarily. Although Salvadoran productions can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and are generally not very comedy-oriented, the country has many modern cinemas, which you can easily find in the major cities. Take advantage of a break in your program to visit one of the Cinemark or Cinépolis multiplexes in San Salvador, San Miguel or Santa Ana. Enough to quench your thirst for international cinema, whether from Latin America or elsewhere.
