Matías Piñeiro

Interview with filmmaker Matías Piñeiro. Recorded February 2014.

During the quarantine in 2020, the two friends Mariano Llinás and Matías Piñeiro sent each other video letters – 8 in total, 4 each of them – to create a compilation of ideas, thoughts and exchanges commissioned by Sergi Álvarez Riosalido for La Casa Encendida (Madrid). Llinás is in Argentina and Piñeiro is in New York, and they begin to order each other portraits of places, reflections on artists, ideas on cinema.

Diane is a devoted friend and caretaker, particularly to her drug-addicted son. But as those around her begin to drift away in the last quarter of her life, she is left to reckon with past choices and long-dormant memories.

Short film belonging to the collective feature film "Archivos Intervenidos: Cine Escuela," produced by the Pablo Ducrós Hicken Film Museum, where images of Bariloche landscapes from 1941 are intertwined in relation to a fragment of the novel "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier, on which Alfred Hitchcock's film is based.

Who is Sycorax? The first character in Shakespeare's "Tempest" to set foot on the island. The problem is that she has no voice. She is barely mentioned by Prospero as a crooked, old, wicked witch who vilely locked Ariel, the spirit of the air, in a tree. But why would she do that? Here, we wouldn't believe Prospero so much.

A group of girls and boys in their twenties settle in a country house that seems completely isolated from civilization, invited by Helena, who plans something humiliating for one of the guests.

Several actresses get caught up in a web of romantic intrigue while performing in a production of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night."

Several actresses get caught up in a web of romantic intrigue while performing in a production of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night."

A young Argentinian woman who works as a museum guide uses her passion - reading - as a means of expression to channel the emotional and working lives of those around her.

A group of actors retire to an island in Tigre to rehearse William Shakespeare’s As You Like It and suddenly Luisa, who is playing Rosalinda, makes a bad decision.

A group of actors retire to an island in Tigre to rehearse William Shakespeare’s As You Like It and suddenly Luisa, who is playing Rosalinda, makes a bad decision.

Continuing the series started with Intervened Events (2014), the Buenos Aires Film Museum presents the second feature film made entirely with material from its archives and by fourteen outstanding Argentine filmmakers. These are nine issues of Cine Escuela Argentino, a project created in 1948 by the Argentine Ministry of Education during the first government of Juan Domingo Perón. The latter promoted “the use of the cinematographer as a didactic assistant destined to complete the educational and cultural work, mainly in what concerns exalting the feelings of the nationality, with the heroic example of the heroes, Christian morality and the multiple civil duties, great and small”. Hence, most of the films produced by Cine Escuela Argentino were aimed at scientific dissemination and tourism promotion of the various regions of the country. (Museum of Cinema)

Who is Sycorax? The first character in Shakespeare's "Tempest" to set foot on the island. The problem is that she has no voice. She is barely mentioned by Prospero as a crooked, old, wicked witch who vilely locked Ariel, the spirit of the air, in a tree. But why would she do that? Here, we wouldn't believe Prospero so much.

A year after his father’s death, Victor returns to Buenos Aires in order to reconquer the life he was forced to abandon. He brings a new project with him for his former theater company: a radio-play of Shakespeare’s “Love’s Labour’s Lost”.

An adaptation of “Sea Foam”, a chapter from Cesare Pavese’s “Dialoghi con Leucò” published in 1947. The ancient Greek poet Sappho and the nymph Britomartis meet beside the sea and have a conversation about love and death. Sappho is said to have thrown herself into the ocean from lovesickness. Britomartis apparently tumbled off a cliff and into the water while fleeing from a man. Together, the two discuss the stories and images that have emerged around them to try and understand, at least for a moment, the bittersweet nature of desire.

Six soldiers wandering in search of enemies in the forest where they can't see an inch ahead. While gathering on the island to prepare Shakespeare's play, Luisa finds out that other actors are stalking her. A pig iron ephemera transported to a steel mill.

A group of girls and boys in their twenties settle in a country house that seems completely isolated from civilization, invited by Helena, who plans something humiliating for one of the guests.

A young Argentinian woman who works as a museum guide uses her passion - reading - as a means of expression to channel the emotional and working lives of those around her.

Camila, a young Argentine theater director, travels from Buenos Aires to New York to attend an artistic residency to develop a Spanish translation of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Upon her arrival, she begins to receive a series of mysterious postcards which set her down a winding path through her past and towards her future.

During the quarantine in 2020, the two friends Mariano Llinás and Matías Piñeiro sent each other video letters – 8 in total, 4 each of them – to create a compilation of ideas, thoughts and exchanges commissioned by Sergi Álvarez Riosalido for La Casa Encendida (Madrid). Llinás is in Argentina and Piñeiro is in New York, and they begin to order each other portraits of places, reflections on artists, ideas on cinema.

An adaptation of “Sea Foam”, a chapter from Cesare Pavese’s “Dialoghi con Leucò” published in 1947. The ancient Greek poet Sappho and the nymph Britomartis meet beside the sea and have a conversation about love and death. Sappho is said to have thrown herself into the ocean from lovesickness. Britomartis apparently tumbled off a cliff and into the water while fleeing from a man. Together, the two discuss the stories and images that have emerged around them to try and understand, at least for a moment, the bittersweet nature of desire.

An adaptation of “Sea Foam”, a chapter from Cesare Pavese’s “Dialoghi con Leucò” published in 1947. The ancient Greek poet Sappho and the nymph Britomartis meet beside the sea and have a conversation about love and death. Sappho is said to have thrown herself into the ocean from lovesickness. Britomartis apparently tumbled off a cliff and into the water while fleeing from a man. Together, the two discuss the stories and images that have emerged around them to try and understand, at least for a moment, the bittersweet nature of desire.

An adaptation of “Sea Foam”, a chapter from Cesare Pavese’s “Dialoghi con Leucò” published in 1947. The ancient Greek poet Sappho and the nymph Britomartis meet beside the sea and have a conversation about love and death. Sappho is said to have thrown herself into the ocean from lovesickness. Britomartis apparently tumbled off a cliff and into the water while fleeing from a man. Together, the two discuss the stories and images that have emerged around them to try and understand, at least for a moment, the bittersweet nature of desire.

Camila, a young Argentine theater director, travels from Buenos Aires to New York to attend an artistic residency to develop a Spanish translation of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Upon her arrival, she begins to receive a series of mysterious postcards which set her down a winding path through her past and towards her future.

Pereda returns with a small, mysterious and moving tribute to Chantal Akerman, conceived as a series of joyful impossible letters addressed to the great disappeared from the cinema, to answer her fictional question about renting her bright apartment in Coyoacán.

Eleven young film-makers got together to collaborate in this atypical project. Atypical not only because of its technical specs, but because of its narrative structure. There are several scenes with only the city in common, and more as a conceptual presence at that than as a precise geography. None of those scenes contains a single "story": Each one of them is part of a larger situation that we cannot see, as though the beginning and end of each "story" had to be filled in by the audience.

Eleven young film-makers got together to collaborate in this atypical project. Atypical not only because of its technical specs, but because of its narrative structure. There are several scenes with only the city in common, and more as a conceptual presence at that than as a precise geography. None of those scenes contains a single "story": Each one of them is part of a larger situation that we cannot see, as though the beginning and end of each "story" had to be filled in by the audience.

Idea by Garbiñe Ortega, celebrating four years of work, cinema and love.

Matías Piñeiro's first film, produced when he was a film student.

Mariel wants to play Isabella in Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure”. With the support of Luciana, who is also an actress, she has already rehearsed the part. But during the audition, Mariel realises that Luciana is trying out for the same role.

Shot at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires, In the Museum results from photographs taken with a nude painting during the director's previous feature, La Princesa de Francia. Six months after the filming, Matías Piñeiro returns to New York and realizes that he had taken with him the photographic camera that had supported the film and where are the photographs taken by the character Jimena (here, Gabi Saidón) in one of the scenes in the museum.

A year after his father’s death, Victor returns to Buenos Aires in order to reconquer the life he was forced to abandon. He brings a new project with him for his former theater company: a radio-play of Shakespeare’s “Love’s Labour’s Lost”.

Mariel wants to play Isabella in Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure”. With the support of Luciana, who is also an actress, she has already rehearsed the part. But during the audition, Mariel realises that Luciana is trying out for the same role.

Short film belonging to the collective feature film "Archivos Intervenidos: Cine Escuela," produced by the Pablo Ducrós Hicken Film Museum, where images of Bariloche landscapes from 1941 are intertwined in relation to a fragment of the novel "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier, on which Alfred Hitchcock's film is based.

Short film belonging to the collective feature film "Archivos Intervenidos: Cine Escuela," produced by the Pablo Ducrós Hicken Film Museum, where images of Bariloche landscapes from 1941 are intertwined in relation to a fragment of the novel "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier, on which Alfred Hitchcock's film is based.

An actress goes to Azores to take part in the theatrical tour of The Tempest and on her arrival she finds no one from the company, there is not even a theatre. After meeting Ariel, the actress discovers that the play has already started, the whole island is a theatre and its inhabitants are characters.

“Gerard Borràs, the editor of YOU BURN ME, said at the end of our work together, ‘This film could continue being edited forever: let’s finish it.’ He was right and so we found its balance. Still, there was one idea I was not able to include in the feature. Around its premiere at the 2024 Berlinale, I said, ‘I could make a preface to the film around this missing point – after all, Pavese wrote a preface to the book ‘Dialogues with Leucò’ and also one preface to each of its 20 chapters, including ‘Sea Foam’, the chapter we adapted. So, one year after finishing YOU BURN ME, and with all new footage specially shot and edited for the occasion, here is our little preface…” –Matías Piñeiro