Juvenile prisoners grab cameras and accidentally film their own liberation.
The youngsters housed in the "Almafuerte" Maximum Security Juvenile Institute have their first approach to audiovisual recording. A film and documentary video workshop serves as an excuse for them to make a short film inside the prison. The camera is a rabid toy that generates fascination in them and rescues a sheltered, innocent smile that seemed forgotten under the shadows. While inside libertarian cries bounce against the walls, outside sounds fanfares of an iron fist.
Direction
Three filmmakers, zero distance from their subjects.
Production
Shot inside actual maximum-security juvenile prison.
Editing
Cuts between fiction workshop and crushing reality.
Director
Santiago Nacif Cabrera
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Argentina's juvenile prison system has faced international scrutiny; this workshop was reportedly a rare sanctioned creative program that the filmmakers exploited to maximum subversive effect.
The title's bitter irony: 'Almafuerte' means 'strong soul,' the pseudonym of a beloved Argentine poet who wrote about the oppressed — the state named a prison after him.
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