Mexico City, July 18 (EFE).- Colombian filmmaker Víctor Gaviria began his work this Monday with film students from the popular neighborhood of Iztapalapa in Mexico City with the “Cinema of Reality” seminar-workshop, a space in which expands his experience in the seventh art as part of the actions carried out in the capital to recognize his career.

“I was surprised, they are neighborhood boys similar to the municipalities of Medellín or Bogotá,” Gaviria told Efe in a press conference before receiving the Cineteca national medal and inaugurating a retrospective from his work. .

“I started talking and at first you slip a little, you don’t know who you’re talking to, but I read poems by a poet from a social neighborhood and saw that they were attentive (…) they said that these poems were what they lived, the otherness where one is not only poor, but in another way”, he deepened his facet of pedagogue .

On the first day of the 14 planned for the internship, the director had a pleasant experience and even recognized in his students the revelation he himself had in his youth when he realized that he had everything around him to make “reality cinema”.

In addition, he assured that he was happy to be part of an effort to decentralize cinema in the country promoted by the Faculty of Cinema, Trilce Cinema and the School of Community Cinema and Photography of Pohualizcalli, the latter where the seminar is held.

“Tomorrow we will go back to the community school and it is an added bonus to all this joy, to go directly to speak to the young people who have asked for the democratization of cinema”, underlined Gaviria.

CINETECA NATIONAL MEDAL

This Monday, Gaviria was part of the select group of filmmakers awarded the Cineteca National Medal, such as the Canadian Atom Egoyan, the Chilean Miguel Littín or the Argentinian Adolfo Aristarain.

“This medal is awarded to great international filmmakers whose work has been transcendent. Without a doubt for his cinematographic and literary work, Víctor Gaviria is worthy of it”, assured Alejandro Pelayo, director of the Cineteca Nacional de México, before presenting the prize.

“Thank you very much because for me it’s proof that we were filmmakers and that we brought cinema to life and that everything we did, these long investigative films, with such difficult castings, everything what somehow works is the work of a filmmaker with a happy spirit,” Gaviria told the audience, who dedicated the award to his wife, Marcela Jaramillo, and his daughter, Mercedes Gaviria. who were in the audience.

The recognition is part of “Reality, Restlessness and Beauty”, a retrospective of the Colombian filmmaker that will take place in the Mexican place dedicated to cinema, and which will be reproduced at the Elena Garro Cultural Center and in the facilities of the Faculty of Cinema of Mexico, that the latter, together with Trilce Cinema, from Colombia, was at the origin of this initiative.

The screening of his restored filmography can be enjoyed by the public from July 19 to 24, where five Gaviria films will be screened, such as “Rodrigo D. No Future” (1990), “The Rose Seller” (1998) , “Simón the magician” (1994), “Addition and subtraction” (2004) and “The woman of the animal” (2006), as well as some of his short films.

In the same place, and within the framework of the activities, the book “Víctor Gaviria. Reality, concern and beauty. His cinematographic work.

Likewise, the Elena Garro Cultural Center will organize a discussion on the books written by Gaviria, “El pelaito que no dura nada” and “El campo al fin de accounts no es tan verde”, and on Saturday July 24 at the Palacio de Bellas Artes , the highest cultural place in Mexico, his poetry will be exhibited with the presentation of the recital of “Every story is that of love. Poetic anthology of Víctor Gaviria”, among other activities.