Arts Centre Vooruit, Ghent, Belgium

This year, the Film Festival Ghent focuses on Argentina, a country that has quite a rocky political history. But we can’t help but wonder what the situation is in the rest of South America.

The choice between slow and difficult reforms by the democratic left and populist experiments is often seen as the battle for the future of South America. Can Hugo Chávez avoid the pitfalls suffered by other populist regimes? Will politics finally be modernised? How does he deal with the opposition? Will social consumption slow down investments? What will happen when the oil prices drop (however unlikely that may seem right now)? How will the political conflict between the Ecuadorian president and the established political structure evolve? Will the social democratic governments succeed in developing modern institutions for income redistribution? Will they be able to control the tensions between their following and the demands of a cautious economic policy, which is better off with a technocracy than with a participative democracy? How will they reconcile the demands of their traditional working class following with the expectations of new voters from the middle classes and the informal sector? With which parties can they form political alliances without losing their identity?

Vooruit’s Critical Forum will be organising a debate discussing these themes, but first we’ll be showing El Último Confín (Argentina, 2006, 54 min., directed by Pablo Ratto. In the documentary, an Argentinean forensic team uncovers a secret burial ground for victims of the military regime. This gripping documentary follows their research and the families of the desaparecidos, who hope to find the remains of their family members who have been missing for all these years.

Debate on South America with:

• Liesbeth Walckiers (former VRT journalist, president of the North-South press agency IPS-Vlaanderen)

• An Vranckx (Ghent University, Department of Third World Studies)

• Pol De Vos (Researcher of South American health policy)

• Pablo Ratto (director of El Último Confín)