Todos los fuegos
Director:
Aldana Juarez Czeplowodzki
Producer:
Aldana Juarez Czeplowodzki, David Fontseca
Production company:
Agata Films y La Kaseta
Production country:
Spain
Duration in minutes:
90
Contact:
Sinopsys:
I asked my father-in-law, Norberto, for the archive of more than thirty years of his investigation into the death of Che Guevara. He is ready to reveal a thesis about his execution that challenges the official narrative. I decided to join him and make a film about that search. I thought I was entering a historical investigation. But as I moved through hundreds of documents, images, and traces gathered over decades, something began to transform. I discovered that revolution can also hold the deepest forms of tenderness. And that, deep within our society, those forms still persist, as a way of affirming that humanity has not disappeared.
Long Sinopsys
All the Fires follows filmmaker Aldana as she enters the archive of her father-in-law, Norberto Forgione, who has spent more than thirty years investigating the death of Che Guevara. Through interviews with former guerrilla fighters, peasants, military officers, and historians, as well as declassified documents, Norberto’s research challenges the official narrative and exposes unresolved wounds.
Aldana initially sets out to help Norberto complete the film he has long envisioned: a historical account capable of naming betrayal and responsibility. Yet as she immerses herself in hundreds of hours of Betacam, VHS, and digital recordings, the material resists that form. Images, voices, and documents accumulate without offering resolution, revealing not only facts but also fragility and exhaustion. Unable to make the film Norberto expects, she steps away.
A year later, Norberto sends Aldana a clandestine 1967 audio recording: miners chanting in assembly, declaring their decision to join the guerrilla struggle, just before the army carried out the San Juan massacre. The recording unsettles Aldana and draws her back—not to resolve the archive, but to listen differently.
Back in Norberto’s archive, Aldana encounters Eusebio, a former guerrilla who fought alongside Che without knowing his identity. Through silence and movement, Eusebio guides the crew, recounting his experience through his body and connection to the land. Together, they search for a man known as “the ferryman,” whose help is essential to cross the Río Grande. This waiting and searching gradually becomes the film itself.
The river crossing comes to symbolize both Norberto’s readiness to confront the pain of his discoveries and Aldana’s willingness to engage with what lies beyond the images. All the Fires becomes a space to reorder what has been seen, heard, and felt—transforming pain into gestures of care, and tracing intermittent lights of humanity that persist despite violence and erasure. Even in times of darkness, some lights never fully disappear.
Creative Process
All the Fires is a documentary born from the observation and interpretation of a historical research archive I discovered five years ago. Over time, the project evolved into a highly conceptual work, shaped by a dialogue between the archival material and my presence in the present.
The film is built through immersion, interruption, reconfiguration, and reinterpretation as the archive becomes part of my life. Its form emerges through editing, guided by an essayistic voice-over that structures the narrative and accompanies its emotional journey.
At the center is the personal archive created by Norberto Forgione over thirty years: Betacam, VHS, and digital recordings documenting his independent investigation into Che Guevara’s death. Interviews, field recordings, letters, and documents—initially historical evidence—transform into a living, fragile material. Moments of black screen let sound structure the off-screen, allowing memory and emotion to emerge beyond images.
The film increasingly relies on the archive’s own voices, while present-day shooting within a specially designed installation space—the “vessel”—emphasizes observation, texture, duration, and proximity to objects and images outside our time. Memory is accessed through gestures, silences, bodies, and landscapes. Central to this approach is Eusebio, a former guerrilla, whose movements and connection to the land convey history beyond words. In one segment, he reenacts the death of his 17-year-old comrade Serapio, using gesture to express violence, survival, and care without speaking.
My voice-over does not aim to explain events but to articulate doubt, ethical questions, and emotional displacement, reflecting on political memory, ideals, inheritance, betrayal, and tenderness as a form of resistance. Archival footage, contemporary images, and installation sequences collapse and reorganize, creating a fluid, sensory engagement with the material.
A key sequence follows the crew, guided by Eusebio, waiting for a man called “the ferryman” to help them cross a river. This crossing becomes central, symbolizing Norberto’s readiness to speak and my willingness to make the film as I truly feel it. A formal gesture—the burning of a chair used during Norberto’s interview—represents the need to destroy prior structures to imagine new ways of inhabiting, creating, and thinking.
Inspired by Georges Didi-Huberman’s notion of the survival of fireflies, the project seeks “images of tenderness”: fragile gestures that persist within and despite historical violence, revealing small lights of humanity in the darkness of history and the present.
Director's note
All the Fires is a documentary born from the observation and interpretation of a historical research archive I discovered five years ago. Over time, the project evolved into a highly conceptual work, shaped by a dialogue between the archival material and my presence in the present.
The film is built through immersion, interruption, reconfiguration, and reinterpretation as the archive becomes part of my life. Its form emerges through editing, guided by an essayistic voice-over that structures the narrative and accompanies its emotional journey.
At the center is the personal archive created by Norberto Forgione over thirty years: Betacam, VHS, and digital recordings documenting his independent investigation into Che Guevara’s death. Interviews, field recordings, letters, and documents—initially historical evidence—transform into a living, fragile material. Moments of black screen let sound structure the off-screen, allowing memory and emotion to emerge beyond images.
The film increasingly relies on the archive’s own voices, while present-day shooting within a specially designed installation space—the “vessel”—emphasizes observation, texture, duration, and proximity to objects and images outside our time. Memory is accessed through gestures, silences, bodies, and landscapes. Central to this approach is Eusebio, a former guerrilla, whose movements and connection to the land convey history beyond words. In one segment, he reenacts the death of his 17-year-old comrade Serapio, using gesture to express violence, survival, and care without speaking.
My voice-over does not aim to explain events but to articulate doubt, ethical questions, and emotional displacement, reflecting on political memory, ideals, inheritance, betrayal, and tenderness as a form of resistance. Archival footage, contemporary images, and installation sequences collapse and reorganize, creating a fluid, sensory engagement with the material.
A key sequence follows the crew, guided by Eusebio, waiting for a man called “the ferryman” to help them cross a river. This crossing becomes central, symbolizing Norberto’s readiness to speak and my willingness to make the film as I truly feel it. A formal gesture—the burning of a chair used during Norberto’s interview—represents the need to destroy prior structures to imagine new ways of inhabiting, creating, and thinking.
Inspired by Georges Didi-Huberman’s notion of the survival of fireflies, the project seeks “images of tenderness”: fragile gestures that persist within and despite historical violence, revealing small lights of humanity in the darkness of history and the present.
Director
Aldana Juarez Czeplowodzki
Aldana is a screenwriter, film director, editor, and visual artist whose work emerges from lived experience and sustained artistic research. Rooted in documentary practice, her films explore the boundaries between reality, memory, and representation through a critical lens on systems of power and the ways history is constructed and transmitted through images. Her cinematic language moves between documentary, essay film, and audiovisual installation, combining close observation of human and spatial environments with a reflexive narrative voice that questions its own position. Her work often navigates tensions between intimacy and distance, personal and collective memory, and political and emotional experience. Aldana began her career in Argentina, where she worked with Canal Encuentro and directed the short film Eslabón 16 (INCAA TV Award). She has developed projects focused on memory, territory, and collective identity, and has also worked as a teacher and facilitator in social and community contexts. She is currently directing her first feature-length documentary.
outros trabalhos:
Producer
David Fontseca
David Fontseca Romanos (Barcelona, 1974) is an award‑winning filmmaker, director, and producer, widely recognized for his work in social and cultural documentary with a clear international focus. Over more than two decades, he has combined narrative commitment, artistic sensitivity, and rigorous management, establishing himself as a key figure in contemporary European documentary cinema. In 2015, he founded La Kaseta Ideas Factory, a production company dedicated to socially driven storytelling, where he leads projects that integrate creativity and strong production management, with particular emphasis on international co‑productions. His films have been selected at major festivals worldwide, and has been recognized with numerous awards, and multiple international festival distinctions. Fontseca is an active member of the Federación de Productores Audiovisuales, the Sindicato de Periodistas de Cataluña, Reporteros Sin Fronteras, and the International Federation of Journalists. He represents an essential voice in contemporary European documentary filmmaking. His vision champions cinema that amplifies silenced voices, connects with diverse audiences, and generates real impact, with the aim of strengthening international co‑productions and promoting sustainable, culturally meaningful models within independent documentary. www.lakaseta.com
