Experiencing Interruptions?

BLACK OUT!

Alejandra Almirón lives and works as a film editor in Buenos Aires. In 2010, she began to have recurring power outages until, in the summer of 2014, a blackout affected her neighborhood for a month. Alejandra worked in coffee shops and hotels, filming what looked like a postcard from Chernobyl and searching for all kinds of information about electricity.
Her flâneur on the web began with Nikola Tesla and reached the Solar Storms. This is how she learned that the largest ever recorded was produced in 1859. That year the northern lights could be seen in unusual places, such as Madrid or La Habana, and all the electricity at that time - on which we did not depend so much - was damaged. Due to her personal search, she decides to contact people in various cities in Argentina and Europe to reflect on the fragile and uncertain world in which we all live.

  • Alejandra Almirón
    Director
  • Alejandra Almirón
    Writer
  • Sergio Criscolo
    Producer
  • Elisabeth Rasmussen
    Producer
  • Fernanda Rossi
    Producer
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    LLamarada
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 23 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    January 7, 2022
  • Production Budget:
    100,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Argentina
  • Language:
    English, Norwegian, Spanish
  • Student Project:
    No
  • FIDBA, Buenos Aires International Documentary Film Festival
    Buenos Aires
    Argentina
    January 6, 2022
    Argentinian Premiere
    Winner, Argentinian Competition, Oficial Selection, Documentary Competition
  • Málaga Film Fest
    Málaga
    Spain
    June 16, 2021
    Spanish Premiere
    Oficial Selection
Distribution Information
  • 996 Films
    Sales Agent
    Country: Argentina
    Rights: All Rights
Director Biography - Alejandra Almirón

Alejandra Almirón is a documentary filmmaker, screenwriter and editor.
She studied Communication Sciences (UBA) and Cultural Industries (Untref).
She edited more than 40 documentary films, directed three feature films: The Time And The Blood (2004), Green Team (2012/13) and Black Out! (2021/22).
He developed the projects Museo de los niños débiles (together with Maximiliano de la Puente) and Protocol 15 (together with Victoria Comune), made up of object books, with QR codes, augmented reality and performative installations.
She currently participates as a scriptwriter and director in films, documentary series and in the development of transmedia narratives, exploring digital arts, artificial intelligence and literature.
Since the end of 2020 she is writing her first novel, Neptune and since 2021 she is developing the documentary Do not forget Robot, together with electronic artist Mario Guzman and editing the essay Ale, we are ants.

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Director Statement

I`m not a digital native but I cannot remember anymore how was my life like before technology became an utter and complete part of my life.
I´m a film editor. I spend all my time in an interface.
I live in a big city that seems modern, but it’s in the arsehole of the world and since 2010, I started having electricity problems that became recurrent every single summer.
My research, mainly focused on every aspect of electricity, got me to know my friend Mariana. We studied Electronic Arts together. She also helped me become aware that my daily electricity issues could become more definitive and serious.
Any city in the world without electricity would become an useless shell, filled with chaos and violence.
I have a controversial, politically incorrect view because I’m not against technology ruling our lives. That is something that I enjoy and like. But for some time, I also started to think about the fragility that defines us humans living in big cities.
I face a huge challenge: to know and to live with a group of people in Argentina, Spain and Iceland, that are currently getting ready for a huge solar storm similar to 1859´s Carrington’s event to take place. They believe that the consequences would be serious. My dilemma is that I`m so strongly bent to city life, that I hate being in the country or wild places. I´m not sure that I`d like to seek shelter in a bunker when this might happen.
Very little countries in the First World have a contingency plan to relieve the effects from a big solar storm. For most of us, this would mean a power outage that would last for months, maybe years.
My goal in this film is to be able to tell this story with a touch of sense of humor and a deep reflection, marking a distance from the academic tone from the scientific documentary films and the paranoia of the YouTube videos.