With Iván Granovsky, Alberto Ajaka, Rafael Spregelburd, Valeria Lois, Joana de Verona, Juncal Altzugarai, Barbara Gauvain
The desire to bear witness to the world’s great tragedies is addressed playfully by Iván Granovsky in humorous The Territories. It’s a miracle that this road movie even exists, it seems. The three previous times that Granovsky attempted to make a film -he narrates with a sense of self-mockery- turned into fiascos.
But after the terrorist attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, Granovsky decided to follow in the footsteps of his father, a respected journalist who writes for Página 12, Argentina’s most widely read progressive paper. He sets off on a journey to sites of contemporary geopolitical conflict. Determining where the frontline ends and this wannabe war correspondent’s ego trip begins proves even more difficult. From Greece to the less-democratic Brazil, from the Basque Country to Jerusalem, Granovsky is always too late, too early or in the wrong place. He asks clumsy questions, gets vague answers, and in the meantime receives e-mails from his mother telling him to repay his credit card debts to her.
An engrossing exploration into what it means to be a journalist, the film is about how we approach the conflicts – not the conflicts themselves – and the role the press plays in times of fake news. Through war correspondents, journalists, and political scientists, Granovsky narrates from what we call the front lines – the boundary between the journalist and the bullets.
The Territories is also a portrait of a thirty-something trying to find his way in a world full of opportunities, but with no idea of where to start.
