Ensayo #1 (tiempos de guerra)
Film
Ensayo #1 (tiempos de guerra) / Rehearsal #1 (Martial Times) is a single-channel cut developed for Le Guess Who? 2026 from Tiempos de Guerra, an ongoing project by artist Francisco Baquerizo-Racines. It follows two marching bands from separate public schools on the peripheries of Quito, Ecuador. Historically known as bandas de guerra (war bands) and now officially called bandas de paz (peace bands), these student ensembles move between martial cadences and arrangements of Latin American popular music. Their playing is practiced but not polished, disciplined yet unpredictable, giving the music a distinctly vernacular character. Filmed separately, they never share the same space; through editing, the film brings them together in an anticlimactic “battle of the bands.” Remaining within the schools, their rehearsals unfold against a wider climate of confinement and violence, echoing inherited postcolonial and baroque forms of order, belonging and conflict.
Directed by: Francisco Baquerizo-Racines
Running time: 28 minutes
