Ever since it was founded, the CAYC (Centro de Arte y Comunicación), helmed by the cultural promoter, artist, and businessman Jorge Glusberg, was intended as an interdisciplinary space where an experimental art movement could flourish. The establishment of collaborative networks connecting local and international artists and critics played an important role in this process. The exhibitions shone a light on these exchanges, in which overviews of trends or individual artists provided an introduction to the innovations of international contemporary art and made Argentine and Latin American artists better known on the global scene.
Showing films was an important part of the CAYC’s exhibitions program, in keeping with its goal of positioning itself as a space for experimental work. In 1972 the center started showing films on Saturdays; the directors would be there to engage in conversations with viewers. This was a custom that went back to the Cine Clubs that emerged in the 1960s, and to the trends promoted by the Tercer Cine movement (a reference to Third World issues). The program on this occasion consists of two short films by Bernardo Borenholtz following his participation and recognition at a local and global level, including at the Internationale Filmfestspiele in Berlin (1970), the major event in the field.
Los buenos sentimientos (1970) was part of Cuatrónicas, four Argentinean short films: Los buenos sentimientos, El diablo sin dama by Eduardo Calcagno; Vida, pasión y muerte de un realizador iracundo by Rodolfo Corral, and La visita by David Amitin.
El hombre que va a misa (1972) and Los buenos sentimientos—two films by Borenholtz presented at the CAYC—condemn the authorities’ systematic violence against the militant opposition fighting to liberate the people. This was a familiar pattern in most of Latin America during that decade, especially in Argentina, despite the “cultural spring” of the brief (forty-nine days in 1973) democratic presidency of Héctor J. Cámpora.