RANCHO

Through an empathic record and a precise montage, Rancho becomes an invisible observer within an Argentine maximum security prison, giving testimony of  gestures, frictions and unique moments that help building a choral story of characters, not only united by the prison, but also by the violence and the marginality in which they grew up.

PEDRO SPERONI

A scriptwriter and film director. He was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1987.  He studied Image and Sound Design at University of Buenos Aires. He was a jury at the ICARO international film festival in Guatemala. In 2015 he made his first short film Peregrinación, premiered at 2015 BAFICI. Rancho, his first feature film, was selected at Berlinale Talents and Ventana Sur: showcase, among others. His project Bilbao, currently in progress, won the INCAA's Incubator for the Development of Documentary Projects Award. It also partici-pated in several work in progress, being one of the most remarkable ones the Encuentro Iberoamericano de Cineastas Emergentes (Ibero-American Meeting of Emerging Filmmakers), with support of Ibermedia and IDFA WIP showcase.

When I was 10, everything seemed fine. My maternal grandfather was ambassador to the Vatican, three of my mother’s brothers ran a very important bank, my father was a partner in a law firm. By the end of that year the family decay began though, looking back, maybe everything had fallen apart already. First my uncles were arrested for committing fraud, one of them ran away. My grandfather left the Holy See. My father had to leave the law firm. What I had shaped as my family identity was no longer there. Family problems, problems between my parents, my maternal surname printed in all papers next to «fraud». One day my uncle fugitive from justice appeared in my house. It was night. We shared the bedroom for over a month. Until one day he had to flee. A few days later he was arrested again. I remember going to visit him several times at the prison. My mother would take me, we would meet in the visiting room. I remember the search and the various corridors we had to go throu-gh to get to where he was. Many of those scenes are forever etched in my memory. Years later, the chance to re-enter a prison came up. And the feelings I had experienced visiting my uncle reappeared, but this time they were much more powerful. I started going to prison almost every day. The bond between me and the prisoners grew strong and intimate. And almost unwittingly, this documentary film took shape.

• BAFICI / Argentina

DOKer 2021 — Main Competition