. . . . . . *** On Puppets and Poetry ***

Photo from El Alquimista Democrático

In the beginning, I was a puppeteer. I’d had a puppet theater since I was a child. In the early forties, when I began my studies at the university, what had earlier been limited to my own household and neighborhood became a much more public activity. Somewhat in imitation of La Barraca, the traveling theatre group founded in Pre-Civil War Spain by Federico Garcia Lorca, a group of us would take that puppet theater on tour — to schools, orphanages, insane asylums, jails — around the city of Santa Fe and the province of El Litoral.

Later I moved on from puppets to flesh-and-blood actors, directing the first university theater group at the Universidad Nacional del Litoral. My goal as director remained the same: to reach the broadest possible audience within the popular sector. This concern explains, in part, why I was to turn eventually to filmmaking.

My deepest creative roots, however, are in poetry. I began writing poetry as a child, and continue to do so; it is the foundation of all my work. As a puppeteer, as a theater director, as a filmmaker — what has guided my steps is nothing other than the search for and expression of a poetics.
I come from a generation that was practically born with the movies. From early childhood, I went to the movies almost daily. I remember seeing Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer while sitting on my father’s lap. When, at the height of my success as a theater director, I opted for filmmaking as a career, it was because I realized that neither poetry nor theater could offer me access to audiences larger than those I was already reaching.

From: Burton, Julianne. Cinema and Social Change in Latin America: Conversations with Filmmakers. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, (1986): 2-11. [Used with permission]