Patricia Zimmermann, Charles A. Dana Professor of Screen Studies and Director of the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival, was invited to write an essay for the Berlinale Forum section of the 72nd Berlin Film Festival in Berlin, Germany February 10-20, 2022.
Her essay analyzes La ehad media [The Middle Ages] (Alejo Moguillansky and Luciana Acuna, Argentina, 2022). It can be accessed here:
Films about confinement during the pandemic may have gone viral, but LA EDAD MEDIA is a species of a whole other kind.
Lucid and ludic, terribly funny but also deeply serious at the same time, this film co-directed by dancer and choreographer Luciana Acuña and filmmaker Alejo Moguillansky has a wise, privileged narrator: their ten-year-old daughter Cleo. Through her eyes, the film deals with far more issues than mere Covid routines, such as online lessons and virtual shopping, the latter of which turns awfully weird here.
The Berlinale Forum 2022 asks new questions about cinema: How is the current pandemic interfering with filmmaking? More than one film in the program poses questions about post-pandemic art – sometimes in a playful way, sometimes with analytical observation.
