8th Festival: The Soul of Argentina in the Jorge Denti’s “Dr. Guevara “
The Italian-Argentine director Jorge Denti, founder member of Cine de la Base and witness of the liberation struggles of Argentina, will show his latest work “The huella Dr. Ernesto Guevara” a preview for Italy during the Festival. The film is an authentic portrait of the future, still young and just graduated, “Che”, looking like many doctors, but burned by the sacred fire of knowledge, to seek himself around the entire South American continent with a couple of old friends, Alberto Grenado and Carlos “Calica” Ferrer.
The young doctor is already a meticolous researcher, a poetry lover, a photographer, he loves archeology and sociology, and also a brave reporter. The public is going to get to know him through the stories told in the film, e.g. the adventure on the train bringing him from the Andean pampas plateau, travelling in a wagon, together with poor people. Guevara read the Pablo Neruda’s Canto General with the same attitude as if he was checking a map. He re-experienced fully the most significant episodes of his trip when he was a practicing physician. The film focuses on his second trip to Latin America. It starts from the correspondence that Ernesto had with his family, especially with his mother, Aunt Beatrice and with her fellow student Betta “Tita” Infante, using the testimony of his brother Juan Martin and of more than 20 people, that had accompanied the life of Dr. Ernesto Guevara. “The huella Dr. Ernesto Guevara” is an extraordinary patchwork, on which Jorge Denti worked like, or better than, an historian.
Observing the South American continent, poor and oppressed, Ernesto Guevara changed his attitude toward life. In Mexico, where he worked as a street-photographer and practised as a doctor in the General Hospital, he supported strongly and enthusiastically the Movement 26th July.
The analogy of the extraordinary human journey of the young Guevara with the life of Jorge Denti is clear and evident. By describing Guevara’s exile in Mexico, ready to support his country and all South-American revolutionary movements against the dictatorships, Jorge Denti makes available his capacity to the the struggle against the tyranny, as a form of solidarity. It will be a pleasure to meet him again in our Festival, after seven years.
Jorge Denti will be in Naples during the festival and he will receive a tribute to his art, on Thursday, November 12, at 17:00, Theatre of the Accademia di Belle Arti (Academy of Fine Arts).