Escuela Normal – A Documentary
Argentine director Celina Murga’s first documentary is the fulfilment of her long-held dream of returning, this time with a camera crew, to the historic school she attended as an adolescent. Given a rare chance for candid interviews with both students and teachers, this former Rolex protégée presents in her film a riveting and often surprising portrait of the daily school life of Argentine teenagers. She was interviewed in December 2010 by the Rolex Arts Initiative.
You are currently working on Escuela Normal (public school) a documentary about life at a high school in Argentina. Whose idea was it to document this story?
It was both mine and my husband’s. I’ve always fantasized about going back to high school, and Juan [Villegas, Murga’s husband] suggested I go back to make a documentary. Escuela Normal – the school I chose to document – was especially significant because it was the first ever “standardized” school in Argentina mandated by President Domingo Faustino Sarmiento in 1871. At that time, immigrants were coming to Argentina from all over and it was important to “normalize” the mix of cultures to create an “official” Argentine society. “Normal” refers to norms, or standards, that Sarmiento wanted to establish through education to determine what it meant to be Argentine. This year, Argentina is celebrating its 200th birthday, and I think it’s important to reflect on what we aspired to back then compared to the situation today. On a more personal note, it’s also where I was educated.
You focus on students who are in their last or second-last year of high school — between the ages of 16 and 18. What was your impression of the students?
The older students are finishing school — it’s a critical stage of life for them. They are aware of their future. They know that they’ll soon have to make important decisions about their lives, and it’s a bit daunting.
Most teachers in Argentina have preconceived ideas about high school students – they think they’re lazy or indifferent – but I didn’t see that. The students I observed were motivated and engaged. School elections were going on and the efforts they put into campaigning and improving school life were impressive.
What surprised you about the students’ attitudes?
I was surprised that more of them weren’t dying to leave Paranà [a small town in north-eastern Argentina] for the big city [Buenos Aires] – I couldn’t wait to leave when I was their age. But the situation is different now, and Buenos Aires is much more dangerous than it used to be – they’re scared.
You mention that teachers, counsellors and administrators are also portrayed in the documentary? Were they hopeful for the students’ future?
Opinions vary. The main adult protagonists in the film were teachers, the director and the superintendent. Some of them were hopeful while others much less so. The superintendent gave me access to the kinds of conflicts that exist at the school – in the time it took to walk 50 metres down the hallway with her, we had encountered just as many problems.
What kinds of problems?
Poverty is a big one. The social crisis in Argentina is very present in the public school system. And a lack of support at home. Parents don’t seem to play an active role in the lives of their children. But I don’t want to single them out – it’s a very complex situation to analyze, resulting in robbery, fist fights and sometimes even knives at school. It used to be a sanctuary for learning and now it’s a lot more than that…and a lot less.
What else surprised you about the high school?
On a positive note, I was really pleased to encounter passionate students who have concrete ideas and the motivation to see them through. That being said, day-to-day student life is really chaotic. The school was meant to hold 800 students and there are currently over 1,600 enrolled. And, worst of all, many teachers don’t show up to teach, so the students sit in the classroom with nothing to do or pass their time socializing in the hallways.
Is this your first documentary film? When will the film be released? For TV or cinema? Will it be shown abroad?
Yes, this is my first documentary. It will be released in mid-2011 in Buenos Aires — most likely on TV since it was funded with prize money from an Argentine television station, but we are working on a longer version for the cinema that we hope to show abroad. In fact, the film was selected to participate in an international co-production forum for documentary films called Doc Buenos Aires/ Latin Side of the Doc. International producers, co-producers and television station representatives come to Buenos Aires to discover Latin-American documentaries. The film won a prize there which made it easier for us to distribute it to cinemas in Argentina and abroad.
How do you approach a documentary compared with a feature film?
The filming is the same. The biggest difference is not being in control of the outcome – there’s a structure in place and you have an idea of how things will turn out, but you have to let the situation unfold and hope that real life will be interesting on film. Unlike Scorsese’s films, my films are all about capturing reality, and that was what I liked most about filming a documentary.
- View a clip from Escuela Normal
- Learn about Celina Murga’s third feature film, produced by Martin Scorsese