Liber Arce – LIBERARSE

LIBER ARCE – LIBERARSE is one of many films that have been archived by both the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen and Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art. The film was shown at the Short Film Festival Oberhausen in 1971. Two films by Mario Handler had already been in the festival the previous year: EL PROBLEMA DE LA CARNE (The Problem of Meat, 1969) and ME GUSTAN LOS ESTUDIANTES (I Like the Students, 1968). Liber Arce is the name of a student killed by police during protests in Montevideo, whose subsequent funeral became the largest demonstration the city had seen until then. Handler’s film shows the events leading up to and following the funeral. Its title takes the name of the victim and transforms it into a call to action: liberarse, to free oneself. In Oberhausen, the International Jury of the Association of Film Journalists used LIBER ARCE – LIBERARSE as an opportunity to award “Mario Handler and his film collective” as well as the Colombian Carlos Alvarez and his collective with cash prizes. The jury statement says that the prize was “not awarded on the basis of film criticism or other questionable aesthetic categories,” but that it was a “political prize” intended to enable both collectives to take “the next step in their struggle.” The award was presumably the reason that a copy was acquired for the festival’s archive. In 1973, LIBER ARCE - LIBERARSE was taken into distribution by the Friends of the German Cinematheque (today: Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art). Other Mario Handler works in distribution were EL PROBLEMA DE LA CARNE, ELECCIONES (Elections, co-directed with Ugo Ulive, 1967) and ME GUSTAN LOS ESTUDIANTES. In 2015, Uruguay’s Ministry of Education and Culture funded the restoration of Mario Handler’s films made between 1964 and 1973. The project was led by the film critic and curator Jorge Jellinek, who passed away in 2019, working in collaboration with Karin and Mario Handler. The decision to participate in the restoration of LIBER ARCE – LIBERARSE and ME GUSTAN LOS ESTUDIANTES as part of the “Archive außer sich” project led to the collaboration between the Uruguayan partners, Arsenal and the Short Film Festival Oberhausen. During the search for potential source materials, the 16mm prints in the Arsenal and Oberhausen archives proved to be suitable. In addition, 16mm and 35mm dupe negatives of LIBER ARCE – LIBERARSE were found in Germany’s Federal Archives. The films were digitally restored in 2018 and 2019, and new 35mm negatives and prints were also produced as a safeguard measure. (Tobias Hering, Markus Ruff)