By: Valerie Milano
Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) 11/13/2024 – Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, an important figure in Argentine history, explained through one of his books that there are four types of gauchos: the gaucho singer, the baqueano gaucho, the bad gaucho and the tracker gaucho. Although there are several types of gauchos, they all have the same essence, a relationship of direct affection with Argentine tradition and culture, with the land and with the horse, above all.
This is the very essence of Gaucho Gaucho, a fascinating 2024 documentary film by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw, which explores the lives of Argentine gauchos—traditional cowboys and cowgirls who live a rural, self-sustaining lifestyle in the cattle regions of northwestern Argentina, near Salta.
The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2024 and won the Special Jury Prize for Sound. It was later screened at the AFI FEST and was awarded the first Letterbox Piazza Grande Award at the Locarno Film Festival. Key themes of the film include the gauchos’ deep connection with the land, their traditional practices, and the unique cultural heritage they maintain.
This extraordinary film follows several gaucho characters, including a teenage girl named Guada who challenges gender norms by pursuing her dream of becoming a gaucha. Directors Dweck and Kershaw sat down with The Hollywood Times recently to talk about their film, and they said a lifelong fascination with the gauchos led them to make this documentary.
“We’ve been talking about doing a project about gauchos for years and it’s been a long-time fascination that we both shared for slightly different reasons,” Kershaw said, noting that Dweck is married to an Argentinian woman and has had occasion to visit the country.
(Photo: Impact Partners/Beautiful Stories)
Likewise, Kershaw, whose other works explore the complexity of humans confronting an ever-changing world, said he has spent a great deal of time in that part of the world looking at traditional communities and the connection to the environment, the mythology of the gaucho culture drew him in.
“It’s similar to the mythology of like the Cowboys and the American West,” he said. “There’s just this culture, there’s this fascination within the culture, and as an outsider, it was something that we just wanted to learn more about.”
The film’s visual style is notable for its high-contrast black-and-white cinematography, which the directors chose to capture the timeless quality of the gaucho lifestyle and the stark beauty of the Argentine landscape.
Gaucho Gaucho also reflects the directors’ commitment to immersive storytelling, as they spent nearly three years with the gaucho community to build trust and authenticity in their portrayal. “Finding just the right community of gauchos was paramount” Dweck said.
After searching throughout most of Argentina and observing different communities of gauchos, they found their eventual subjects in the southern region. There they found a truly cohesive community.
“They raise their own cattle; they don’t really work for anybody else. They uphold the traditions of the gaucho and there’s a code of honor that was forged through the layers of history. This (community) was the one we decided to spend the most time with because they were so deeply connected to the natural world, to the physical community and to their animals” said Dweck.
The directors hope to maintain strong bonds with the communities they film by supporting them through various projects, such as water irrigation assistance and the establishment of an equine therapy program to date.
