Lo de Ribera
2013 · 6m · Argentina
Directed by Juan Carlos Camardella
Genres: animation, historical, musical
Tones: contemplative, mythic, whimsical
On a night along the Buenos Aires tango riverbank of 1900, tango myths and legends come to life in animated form. The story draws on tales from tango folklore.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
It's respectful enough—tango folklore animated, sure—but it never commits to the weirdness lurking in those myths; it's too lovely and wistful when it should be unsettling the whole premise of what these legends actually are.
Camardella situates this squarely in the lineage of literary animation and myth-cycle cinema, where folkloric material becomes a formal problem; the 1900 Buenos Aires setting and tango's own mythic status converge into something that understands both its historical weight and its place in animated tradition.
The choice to animate tango *legends* rather than dancers lets the film abstract movement itself into pure gesture and shadow—a single decision that transforms what could be a heritage piece into something that captures the ephemeral, liminal quality tango already possesses.