The Camden International Film Festival is halfway through its 22nd edition, and one of the highlights is a film that started as still pictures before becoming a full portrait of two girls growing up on a farm.
The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer, directed by Argentinian photographer Alessandra Sanguinetti, premiered in August at the Locarno Film Festival. It follows Guillermina “Guile” Aranciaga and Belinda “Beli” Stutz, cousins who grew up tending animals and playing dress-up in the Argentinian Pampas. Sanguinetti first intended to photograph farm animals, but she met the girls’ grandmother and shifted her focus to Guile and Beli.
How Still Pictures Became Video
Sanguinetti told moderator Zaina Bseiso at a Q&A that photography felt limiting. “I felt like it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t hear them… I thought, ‘Photography’s just too flat. I have to film this,'” she said. She set up a video camera on a tripod while taking stills, then noticed the girls performing for the camera. That led to playful improvisation.
“I could tell they started feeling sort of like the stars of their own life with the video,” Sanguinetti said. “When I was photographing them, I felt more like a little dictator. I was more precious with the light and the framing and all of that. And with the video it just felt free. With video, I feel like I’m living with the people… With photography… I feel like I’m watching from the outside. The video just made me feel that I was part of it all.”
A Quarter Century Tracked
The film follows Guile and Beli over a quarter of a century, from girlhood into adulthood. Sanguinetti said the story took shape in the edit room. “I wasn’t sure what it was until I started editing. I had a certainty that it was them, it was the animals as witnesses, time, time, time, the grandmother,” she said.
She found patterns that were invisible during filming. “Like Guillermina, that’s the most literal one. She’s been talking about being a spinster, being alone, since she’s nine. And a lot of things, like self-prophesizing things I discovered through the editing.”
The protagonists have not seen the final cut. Guilermina has seen some versions, but Belinda refused to watch until the film is released. “Belinda, I kept offering to show her as I was making different versions of it and she was like, ‘No, I don’t want to see it. I want to see it when it’s out,'” Sanguinetti said. “What might be a shock for her is the arc because I created that. It’s faithful, but it’s missing 80-percent of their lives. This is just the story of them through my eyes, this little bit of their life.”
Where It Plays Next
The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer moves to the San Sebastián Film Festival in Spain. It screens in October at Film Fest Gent in Belgium, the Chicago International Film Festival, and Mill Valley in Northern California.
The Camden festival runs through Sunday in Camden and Rockland, Maine. Prizes include the Harrell Award and the Cinematic Vision Award, judged by juries. The Fowlie Award, named after founder Ben Fowlie, goes to audience choice for favorite feature-length documentary and comes with a $10,000 prize.
Key Facts Box
- Festival: Camden International Film Festival, 22nd edition
- Film: The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer, director Alessandra Sanguinetti
- Premiere: Locarno Film Festival, August
- Next screenings: San Sebastián, Film Fest Gent, Chicago, Mill Valley
- Protagonists: Guillermina Aranciaga and Belinda Stutz
- Running time: Not stated
- Prize: Fowlie Award, $10,000
The story of two girls who grew up together is now a quarter-century-long conversation between filmmaker and subject. Sanguinetti found that video let her live alongside them, not watch from the outside. That shift produced a film audiences in Locarno and Camden have already seen, even as the girls themselves wait to see the finished version.
See the video the story is built around at Deadline.
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