This gentle documentary follows a grandfatherly Argentinean who earns a living travelling from pueblo to pueblo making and showing action movies featuring the locals. “Extraordinary… a real charmer.” — Variety
An evocative portrayal of life in backwoods Argentina, where time stands still; the spaces are vast and nobody, apparently, has a videocamera of their own.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2010
The Peddler 2009
El ambulante
Daniel Burmeister is an itinerant artisan filmmaker who travels around rural Argentina making action movies with the locals, in exchange for food and board. He’s got a bundle of ready-made scripts he can easily adapt (this documentary charts the making – or remaking – of Let’s Kill Uncle), and if he has to draft in ringer firemen for communities too small to have their own fire brigade, so be it. In an era when movies are becoming ever more globalised, The Peddler celebrates an island of quirky cinematic calm in which filmmaking is all about community. Sometimes the demands of that community interfere with Burmeister’s plans and the ramshackle, grandfatherly filmmaker struggles to finesse his modicum of clout into the authority necessary to deliver a finished film that his current adopted home will embrace and be proud of. The filmmakers’ approach is as relaxed and easygoing as their subject’s, resulting in a warm, inviting movie that reminds us of how rich and diverse a cultural practice filmmaking and filmgoing can be. — AL