As far as I could tell, Lucrecia Martel has been working on her documentary “Chocobar” since, at least, 2018. That’s a year after her celebrated “Zama” premiered at the Venice Film Festival.
Since then, for the last three or four years, the film has been spitballed to appear at Cannes and Venice, but has been a no-show. What’s going on exactly?
Martel was honored at Visions du Reel — a documentary festival in Switzerland — and confirmed that she's edited more than a third of “Chocobar”. She claims she’s been working on it for 12 years!
"This film helped me think a lot about the fictional storytelling that I've made and about how it's essential not to arrive at a subject with a predefined way when you want to approach it.”
Martel also admitted herself to being "lost” within the post-production process of “Chocobar” and that she hasn’t a clue what the resulting film will be like. She did confess that making a doc was more "difficult, exciting and satisfying" than fiction.
It does sound like she's still deep in the edit, though, a 2023 release will likely not happen for the film. Now, on to the 2024 Cannes and Venice predictions.
“Chocobar” tackles Javier Chocobar – who was shot dead fighting the removal of his indigenous community from their ancestral land in Argentina. Martel is a big arthouse name with renowned works such as “The Headless Woman,” “The Holy Girl” and “Zama.”