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6th Annual Cinema Tropical Awards

 

6th ANNUAL CINEMA TROPICAL AWARDS

WINNERS


Best Feature Film:
JAUJA

(Lisandro Alonso, Argentina)

Best Documentary Film:
INVASIÓN

(Abner Benaim, Panama)

Best First Film:
IXCANUL (Jayro Bustamante, Guatemala)

Best Director, Feature Film:
Pablo Larraín , EL CLUB / THE CLUB
(Chile)

Best Director, Documentary Film:
Betzabé García , LOS REYES DEL PUEBLO QUE NO EXISTE / KINGS OF NOWHERE
(Mexico)

Best U.S. Latino Film:
MALA MALA (Antonio Santini and Dan Sickles)

 

 

.......  .........................................Co-presenting Partners: .......................................................Sponsor:..

.,.;... .,............    ........

l................................ With the Support of:..................................................... Media Sponsors:...................

......................................  

 


NOMINATIONS

BEST FICTION FILM

THE CLUB | EL CLUB (Pablo Larraín, Chile, 2015)
JAUJA (Lisandro Alonso, Argentina/France, 2014)
LOS HONGOS (Óscar Ruiz Navia, Colombia/France/Argentina/Germany, 2014)
THE PRINCESS OF FRANCE | LA PRINCESA DE FRANCIA (Matías Piñeiro, Argentina/USA, 2014)
WHITE OUT, BLACK IN | BRANCO SAI, PRETO FICA (Adirley Queirós, Brazil, 2014)


BEST DIRECTOR, FICTION FILM

Gabriel Mascaro, AUGUST WINDS | VENTOS DE AGOSTO (Brazil, 2014)
Pablo Larraín, THE CLUB | EL CLUB (Chile, 2015)
Nicolás Pereda, THE ABSENT | LOS AUSENTES (Mexico, 2014)
Laura Amelia Guzmán and Israel Cárdenas, SAND DOLLARS | DÓLARES DE ARENA (Dominican Republic/Mexico/Argentina, 2014)

Paz Fábrega, VIAJE
(Costa Rica, 2015)



BEST FIRST FILM

• 600 MILES (Gabriel Ripstein, Mexico, 2015)
• THE FIRE | EL INCENDIO
(Juan Schnitman, Argentina, 2015)
• IXCANUL
(Jayro Bustamante, Guatemala/France, 2015)
• SHE COMES BACK ON THURSDAY | ELA VOLTA NA QUINTA
(Andrés Novais Oliveira, Brazil, 2014)
• VIDEOPHILIA (AND OTHER VIRAL SYNDROMES) | VIDEOFILIA (Y OTROS SÍNDROMES VIRALES)
(Juan Daniel F. Molero, Peru, 2015)


 

BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM

• A COMMITTEE CHRONICLE | CRÓNICA DE UN COMITÉ (José Luis Sepúlveda and Carolina Adriazola, Chile, 2014)
•    IDENTIFICATION PHOTOS | RETRATOS DE IDENTIFICAÇAO
(Anita Leandro, Brazil, 2014)
• INVASION | INVASIÓN
(Abner Benaim, Panama, 2014)
• LAST CONVERSATIONS | ÚLTIMAS CONVERSAS
(Eduardo Coutinho, Brazil, 2015)
• MONTE ADENTRO
(Nicolás Macario Alonso, Colombia/Argentina, 2014)


 

BEST DIRECTOR, DOCUMENTARY FILM

• Karina García Casanova, JUANICAS (Mexico, 2014)
• Betzabé García, KINGS OF NOWHERE | LOS REYES DEL PUEBLO QUE NO EXISTE
(Mexico, 2015)
• Maíra Bühler and Matias Mariani, I TOUCHED ALL YOUR STUFF | A VIDA PRIVADA DOS HIPOPÓTAMOS
(Brazil, 2014)
• Aldo Garay, THE NEW MAN | EL HOMBRE NUEVO
(Uruguay, 2015)
• Christopher Murray, PROPAGANDA
(Chile,
2014)


 

BEST U.S. LATINO FILM

• THE BOOK OF LIFE (Jorge Gutierrez, USA, 2014)
• EAST SIDE SUSHI
(Anthony Lucero, USA, 2014)
• MALA MALA
(Antonio Santini and Dan Sickles, USA/Puerto Rico, 2014)
• ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL
(Alfonso Gomez-Rejon USA, 2014)
• WE LIKE IT LIKE THAT
(Mathew Ramirez Warren, USA, 2014)



The Awards Ceremony will be held Wednesday, January 20, 2016, at the New York Times Company headquarters in New York City.
The award-winning films will be screened February 25-28, 2016, at Museum of Moving Image in New York City.


FICTION JURY

Paul Dallas is a Brooklyn-based writer, journalist, and programmer. He has contributed to Artforum, BOMB, Cinema Scope, Extra Extra, Film Comment, Filmmaker, IndieWire and Interview. He has organized screenings and series for Columbia University, Guggenheim Museum, Maylses Cinema, and Union Docs. He studied filmmaking at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is a graduate of The Cooper Union's School of Architecture. He is a 2015 Robert Flaherty Fellow and a 2008 Schindler Fellow at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture in Los Angeles. Recently, he assisted on Michael Almereyda's new sci-fi drama Marjorie Prime, and is developing a narrative feature with director Frédéric Tcheng.

Born in Rio de Janeiro, Sandra Kogut has lived and worked in Brazil, France and the USA first as an artist creating performance pieces and installations and then turning to documentary and fiction films. Her work has been featured at The Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum (New York), the Harvard Film Archive and the Forum des Images (Paris). Kogut’s first feature Mutum premiered at the Cannes Film Festival (Director’s Fortnight) and went on to numerous festivals including Toronto, Berlin, Rotterdam and others, receiving more than twenty awards worldwide. She recently premiered her most recent film Campo Grande at the Toronto Film Festival, for which she won the award for Best Director at the Havana Film Festival.

Davis Schwartz is Chief Curator at Museum of the Moving Image in New York, where he has worked since 1985. He is responsible for the Museum’s wide-ranging film screenings, including the First Look Festival –a showcase of groundbreaking international cinema– and is a key member of the exhibition planning team. He was the co-curator of the exhibition "What’s Up Doc? The Animation Art of Chuck Jones." Schwartz is also a visiting professor in Cinema Studies at Purchase College in the New York State University.

 

NON-FICTION JURY

Amalia Córdova is a film curator, filmmaker and scholar specializing in indigenous film. She is the Assistant Director of New York University’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and is the former Latin American Program Manager for the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian’s Film and Video Center, where she organized video tours, film festivals and international screenings. She has also been a panelist, moderator, selector and juror at international indigenous film festivals, including the Morelia International Film Festival and the CLACPI International Film and Video Festival of Indigenous Peoples.


Aaron Cutler
is a film critic and programmer based in São Paulo. He has worked as a programming aide for the São Paulo International Film Festival and programmed or co-programmed retrospectives devoted to the filmmakers Lav Diaz, Heinz Emigholz, and Kira Muratova. Many of his film writings for outlets including Brooklyn Magazine, Cineaste, and Slant Magazine can be found at his website, The Moviegoer (http://aaroncutler.tumblr.com).

 


Dominic Davis
currently works as Programmer for Rooftop Films festival in New York City. He has a degree in mass media studies and political science from the University of Kentucky. In 2011, he took a job with the film office of the Sundance Film Festival, where he discovered film programming as a profession. He has previously programmed for the American Museum of Natural History and its Margaret Mead Film Festival, and the Tribeca Film Festival. He has served on advisory panels and grant and film juries across the globe.


U.S. LATINO JURY

Vanessa Erazo has always been a big film fan. Growing up bilingual, she eventually discovered the rich variety of Latino films but noticed they were hard to find. The search for these movies led her to work for Latino film festivals in San Francisco, New York, and Mexico City. After receiving an M.A. in Latin American Studies from New York University, she served as the Documentary Programmer at the New York International Latino Film Festival and is now the Editor of the Film section at Remezcla. She is also the co-creator of LatinoBuzz, a weekly column on Indiewire, and Co-Director of Cinelandia, an online guide to Latino films playing across the U.S.


Dr. Michelle Leigh Farrell is an Assistant Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Fairfield University in Connecticut. She teaches Spanish and Portuguese language as well as Caribbean and Latin American film and literature. In her research Dr. Farrell focuses on the changing national film industries in twenty-first century Cuba, Venezuela and Brazil. She also researches the independent filmmakers who work beyond the state structures in these three countries. She is a recipient of the American Association of University Women Short-Term Publication Grant and a Summer Scholar-in-Residence at the NYU Faculty Research Network. Dr. Farrell is also a recipient of the American Philosophical Society Lewis and Clark Field Research Grant.


Diana Vargas is the Artistic Director of the Havana Film Festival New York and the founder and programmer for CortoCircuito/ShortCuts Latino Short Film Festival of New York. She is also a producer and media liaison with the CUNY-TV series Nueva York for which she has received two consecutive Emmys. She received several international awards for the documentary series Rostros y Rastros. As a journalist she has published in newspapers and magazines including Hoy (New York City), El Puente Latino, Kinetoscopio (Colombia) and La Opinión (Los Angeles). She also has served as juror in many international film festival and curated programs for different organizations in Latin America and U.S.

 

NOMINATING COMMITTEE

- Fábio Andrade, Editor and film critic, Revista Cinética, Brazil
- Juan Pablo Bastarrachea, Programmer, Cine Tonalá, Mexico
- Consuelo Castillo, Project Coordinator, DOCTV Latinoamérica, Colombia
- Fernando del Razo, Programmer, Riviera Maya Film Festival, Mexico
- Vanessa Erazo, Film Editor, Remezcla, USA
- Luis Gonzalez Zaffaroni, Executive Director, DocMontevideo, Uruguay
- James Lattimer, programmer and film critic, Berlinale's Forum, Germany
- Alicia Morales, Executive Director, Lima Film Festival, Peru
- Joel Poblete, journalist, film critic, and Programmer, SANFIC, Santiago, Chile
- Andrea Stavenhagen, Delegate, San Sebastian Film Festival, Spain, and Coordinator, Impulso Morelia, Mexico
- Charles Tesson, Artistic Director, Critics' Week, Cannes, France
- Raúl Niño Zambrano, Programmer, International Documentary Film Festival - IDFA, Netherlands

 






5th Annual Cinema Tropical Awards

 

 

 

WINNERS


Best Feature Film:
EL LUGAR DEL HIJO / THE MILITANT

(Manuel Nieto Zas, Uruguay)

Best Documentary Film:
CAFÉ

(Hatuey Viveros, Mexico)

Best Director, Feature Film:
Gustavo Fontán , EL ROSTRO / THE FACE
(Argentina)

Best Director, Documentary Film:
Camila José Donoso and Nicolás Videla , NAOMI CAMPBEL
(Chile)

Best First Film:
LAS NIÑAS QUISPE / THE QUISPE GIRLS (Sebastián Sepúlveda, Chile)

Best U.S. Latino Film:
LAS MARTHAS (Cristina Ibarra)
PURGATORIO: JOURNEY INTO THE HEART OF THE BORDER (Rodrigo Reyes)  

The Cinema Tropical Awards are presented in partnership with The New York Times Company Latino Network, the Museum of the Moving Image and the National Association of Latino Independent Producers; Media sponsor: Remezcla. Special thanks to Fabián Caballero and Mara Behrens.

 

.......  .........................................Co-presenting Partners: .........................................................Sponsor:..

.,.;... .,............    ........

l................................ With the Support of:.................................. Media Sponsor:...................Wine Sponsor:

............................................. 


 


 

 

NOMINATIONS

BEST FICTION FILM

HELI (Amat Escalante, Mexico/Netherlands/Germany/France, 2013)
EL LUGAR DEL HIJO | The Militant (Manuel Nieto Zas, Uruguay/Argentina, 2013)
EL ROSTRO | The Face (Gustavo Fontán, Argentina, 2013)
HISTORIA DEL MIEDO | History of Fear (Benjamin Naishtat, Argentina/France/Germany/Uruguay, 2014)
LAS NIÑAS QUISPE | The Quispe Girls (Sebastián Sepúlveda, Chile, 2013)

 

BEST DIRECTOR, FICTION FILM

Manuel Nieto Zas, EL LUGAR DEL HIJO | The Militant (Uruguay/Argentina, 2013)
Gustavo Fontán, EL ROSTRO | The Face (Argentina, 2013)
Sebastián Sepúlveda, LAS NIÑAS QUISPE | The Quispe Girls ROSTRO (Chile, 2013)
Marcelo Gomes and Cao Guimarães, O HOMEM DAS MULTIDÕES | The Man of the Crow (Brazil, 2013)
Rodrigo Moreno, REIMON
(Argentina/Germany, 2014)


 

BEST FIRST FILM

GÜEROS (Alonso Ruizpalacios, Mexico, 2014)

HISTORIA DEL MIEDO | History of Fear (Benjamin Naishtat, Argentina/France/Germany/Uruguay, 2014)
LAS NIÑAS QUISPE | The Quispe Girls (Sebastián Sepúlveda, Chile)
NAJAVAZO (Ricardo Silva, Mexico, 2014)
• SOMOS MARI PEPA | We Are Mari Pepa (Samuel Kishi Leopo, Mexico, 2013)

 

BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM

CAFÉ (Hatuey Viveros, Mexico, 2014)
CARTA A UN PADRE | Letter to a Father (Edgardo Cozarinsky, Argentina/Germany, 2013)
EL CUARTO DESNUDO | The Naked Room (Nuria Ibañez, Mexico, 2013)
LA ÚLTIMA ESTACIÓN | The Last Station (Catalina Vergara and Cristián Soto, Chile, 2013)
NAOMI CAMPBEL (Camila José Donoso and Nicolas Videla, Chile, 2013)

 

BEST DIRECTOR, DOCUMENTARY FILM

Hatuey Viveros, CAFÉ (Mexico, 2014)
Davi Pretto, CASTANHA (Brazil, 2014)
Camila José Donoso and Nicolás Videla, NAOMI CAMPBEL (Chile, 2013)
Ricardo Silva, NAVAJAZO (Mexico, 2014)
Marcos Pimentel, SOPRO | Breath (Brazil, 2013)


BEST U.S. LATINO FILM

CESAR’S LAST FAST (Richard Ray Perez, USA, 2014)
LAS MARTHAS (Cristina Ibarra, USA, 2014)
OF KITES AND BORDERS (Yolanda Pividal, USA/Spain/Mexico, 2014)
PURGATORIO: JOURNEY INTO THE HEART OF THE BORDER (Rodrigo Reyes, USA/Mexico, 2013)
THE STATE OF ARIZONA (Carlos Sandoval and Catherine Tambini, USA, 2014)


FICTION JURY

Gustavo Beck directed and produced the documentaries O Arquipélago (2014), O Inverno de Željka (2012), Chantal Akerman, de cá (2010), A Casa de Sandro (2009) and Ismar (2007). His films played at festivals such as FIDMarseille, Cinéma du Réel, CPH:DOX, Viennale, Locarno, BAFICI and FICValdivia, as well at the Guggenheim Museum, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Centre Pompidou and La Cinémathèque Française. In addition, Gustavo is the Head Programmer of the New Views Competition of Olhar de Cinema - Curitiba International Film Festival. He also acts as a Programme Advisor for Edinburgh International Film Festival. He also collaborates as an independent film curator with film festivals, film institutes and art galleries.

Marcela Goglio studied Communication and Film in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she was born. She lived in Mexico, El Salvador and Costa Rica before moving to New York to study Film and Literature at Columbia University. Since 1999 she has been the programmer of Latinbeat, Film Society of Lincoln Center’s annual festival of new Latin American cinema.

 

Naief Yehya, industrial engineer, journalist, writer, film critic and cultural critic, publishes in La Jornada, Letras libres, Zocalo and Art Nexus, among others. He has published three novels, three short stories collections, and the essays: The Transformed Body. Cyborgs and our Technological Heritage in the Real World and Science Fiction, War and Propaganda. Mass Media and the Myth of War in the US, and, Pornography,Technoculture, The Intimate Space Transformed in Times of War and Peace and Pornculture. Yehya's work deals mainly with the impact of technology, mass media, propaganda and pornography in culture and society. Yehya was born in Mexico City in 1963 and has lived in Brooklyn since 1992.

DOCUMENTARY JURY

Daniela Alatorre is part of the documentary programming committee and a consultant for the Morelia International Film Festival, which she has produced for the last ten years. Her first film as a producer was the 2009 Sundance-award-winning documentary and festival hit El General, directed by Natalia Almada. She also produced De Panzazo (2012), directed by Juan Carlos Rulfo and Carlos Loret de Mola; and El Ingeniero (2012), directed by Alejandro Lubezki. She currently sits in the Board of Trustees of the Flaherty Film Seminar. She recently served as an advisor for the Mexican Institute of Cinematography (IMCINE) revising documentary projects for funding and is currently living in New York as an MFA candidate in documentary filmmaking at the School of Visual Arts.

Rachael A. Rakes was recently appointed Programmer at Large at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, where she co-programs the annual Art of the Real series. She has worked as a programmer and curator for the past 13 years, most recently as Assistant Curator of Film at the Museum of the Moving Image and has organized exhibitions, and screenings for institutions such as Millennium Film Workshop, UnionDocs, Heliopolis Project Space, 92Y Tribeca, ArteEast, and Artists Television Access. She is currently editor of the film section for The Brooklyn Rail, and writes about art and film for Artforum, Art Papers, BOMB, and Hyperallergic. For the past 14 years, she has also worked in independent book publishing as an editor, publicist, and marketing manager at various presses including Verso Books, The Feminist Press, and AK Press.

José Rodríguez is the Manager of Documentary Programming at Tribeca Film Institute (TFI) where he oversees funding for all of the documentary funds and leads the TFI Latin America FundÙs Filmmaker Workshop series. A native of Puerto Rico, he grew up with a passion for movies that led him to Syracuse University, where he wrote a feature script and directed two shorts. After interning as an assistant to producer Amy Hobby, he settled in New York City and became a script/book reader for Overture Films while also working on commercials, short films and features (including Tze Chun's Children of Invention and the documentary Poor Consuelo Conquers the World).


U.S. LATINO JURY

Originally from Mexico City, Lucila Moctezuma is the Executive Producing Director at UnionDocs in New York City. She has worked as manager of the Production Assistance Program at Women Make Movies, director of the Media Arts Fellowships for the Rockefeller Foundation, and she founded and was coordinator of the TFI Latin America Media Arts Fund for the Tribeca Film Institute. She has frequently collaborated with international film festivals including the Morelia Film Festival in Mexico and the Huesca Film Festival in Spain. She has served on selection panels for the Jerome Foundation, the Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund, the International Emmy Awards, the Gucci Ambulante Fellowship (Mexico), and Cinergia Foundation (Costa Rica) among others.

Tammir Muhammad, as Director, Content & Artist Development for Time Warner Inc., he is responsible for a new digital initiative that creates meaningful ways for today's content creators to engage Time Warner's divisions (Warner Bros., HBO and Turner Broadcasting) with the company's longstanding philanthropic focus on the development of the next generation of storytellers. Prior to joining Time Warner Inc., Tamir was the VP, Content Development for Tribeca Enterprise's Digital Studios overseeing the development of content ideas for production and distribution. Tamir also served as the VP, Film, TV, and Online Programming for several years at the Tribeca Film Institute, where he managed and directed funding and other developmental resources for projects by established and emerging filmmakers.

Bernardo Ruiz is the founder of Quiet Pictures, a production company created in 2007. He co-produced the award-winning The Sixth Section (POV, 2003) and is the director/producer of American Experience: Roberto Clemente (PBS, 2008), winner of the NCLR ALMA Award for Outstanding Made for Television Documentary. He is the director and producer of Reportero (POV, 2013), which screened at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, the Los Angeles Film Festival, the Human Rights Watch Film Festival and the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, among many others. He is the Series Writer and Executive Producer of the bilingual documentary series, The Graduates/Los Graduados (Independent Lens, PBS, 2013). Ruiz is a recipient of a New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship in Film and his work has been supported by grants from the Ford Foundation, the Sundance Documentary Institute, ITVS and Cinereach, among others.


NOMINATING COMMITTEE

- Carlos Aguilar, LatinoBuzz/Indiewire, USA
- Pedro Butcher, film critic and journalist, Brazil
- María Campaña Ramia, Encuentros del Otro Cine, Ecuador/Brazil
- Andrés Castillo, Miami International Film Festival, USA
- Vanessa Erazo, Remezcla, USA
- Jim Kolmar, SXSW, USA
- Michel Lipkes, filmmaker and programmer, Mexico
- Leandro Listorti, BAFICI, Argentina
- Javier Martín, Berlin Film Festival, Germany
- Meghan Monsour, Ambulante, Mexico
- Jerónimo Rodríguez, filmmaker and critic, USA/Chile
- Diana Vargas, Havana Film Festival in New York, USA
- Pedro Zuluaga, programmer and scholar, Colombia

 





New Theatrical Releases

 

 

Spring / Summer 2015 Season

 

 

TWO SHOTS FIRED / DOS DISPAROS
(Martín Rejtman, Argentina/Chile/Germany/Netherlands, 2014, 93 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
A Cinema Tropical release

One Week Exclusive Engagement! May 13-19
Film Society of Lincoln Center

144 West 65th Street, New York City
www.filmlinc.com / (212) 875-5232

Rejtman’s first feature in a decade is an engrossing, digressive comedy with the weight of an existentialist novel. Sixteen-year-old Mariano (Rafael Federman), inexplicably and without warning, shoots himself twice—once in the stomach and once in the head—and improbably survives. As his family strains to protect Mariano from himself, his elder brother (Benjamín Coehlo) pursues a romance with a disaffected girl (Laura Paredes) who works the counter at a fast-food restaurant, his mother (Susana Pampín) impulsively takes off on a trip with a stranger, and Mariano recruits a young woman (Manuela Martelli) to join his medieval wind ensemble.

Rejtman tells this story with both compassion and formal daring, pursuing one thread only to abandon it for another. Two Shots Fired is a wry, moving, consistently surprising film about the irrationality of emotions and how they govern our actions at each stage of our lives.

“A rare and wonderful gem of world cinema"
– A.O. Scott, The New York Times

 


 

Summer / Fall 2014 Season

 

 

BAD HAIR / PELO MALO
(Mariana Rondón, Venezuela/Peru/Germany, 2013, 93 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
A Cinema Tropical/FiGa Films release.

Two Weeks Only! November 19-December 2
Film Forum

209 West Houston Street (west of Sixth Avenue), New York City
www.filmforum.org / (212) 727-8110
Daily screenings at 12:45pm, 3pm, 5:10pm, 7:20pm, and 9:30pm

"A touching and humorous coming-of-gender story, Bad Hair chronicles the life of nine-year-old Junior, living in a bustling Caracas tenement with his widowed mother. Junior fears he has pelo malo – bad hair. For his school photo, he wants to iron his stubbornly curly mane straight to resemble one of his pop star idols. His mother, unemployed and frazzled from the pressures of raising two children in an unforgiving city, has serious misgivings; she suspects her son is gay. Grandma is more accepting, teaching Junior to dance to one of her favorite ‘60s rock ‘n’ roll tunes.

Writer-director Mariana Rondón grounds her film in the cultural realities of working-class Venezuela – and, by dint of two remarkable performances, finds warmth and humor between mother and son, even as the uncertainties of pre-adolescence threaten to pull them apart. Winner, Best Film, San Sebastian Film Festival, and winner of directing, acting, and screenwriting awards at numerous festivals throughout the world." - Mike Maggiore, Programmer, Film Forum

“Tender insight into a complicated mother-son relationship… (a) deft balance of toughness and sensitivity.”
– David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

"Tragic and funny in equal measure (...) Highly recommended!"
- David Byrne

 

 


 

SOMOS MARI PEPA / WE ARE MARI PEPA
(Samuel Kishi Leopo, Mexico, 2013, 95 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
A Cinema Tropical/FiGa release.

August 15-21, Exclusive Engagement
Anthology Film Archives

32 Second Avenue (at Second Street), New York City
www.anthologyfilmarchives.com / (212) 505-5181
Nightly screenings at 7pm and 9pm; additional screenings at 5pm on 8/16 & 8/17

Samuel Kishi Leopo’s first feature, expanded from his earlier short film, is a finely observed, heartfelt chronicle of the lives and loves of a group of school-age punk rockers in Guadalajara as they approach the transition into adulthood. Beautifully unhurried and uneventful, We Are Mari Pepa focuses on its protagonists’ milieu and on the rhythm of their daily lives rather than on contrived plot mechanics, observing as they make music (their sole song features the refrain, “Natasha, I wanna cum in your face!”), barely tolerate their uncomprehending families, kill time, and look for love. Having just completed their school year, the boys find themselves facing the daunting realities of growing up, in a world where they have few options and where they’re destined to grow apart from each other.

We Are Mari Pepa is distinguished above all by the terrific performances from its four teenage leads, whose astonishingly natural rapport with each other seems too genuine to be faked – indeed, that they happen to be real-life childhood friends lends the film a strong dose of documentary authenticity. Showing a sure hand in his direction of these non-professional actors, as well as a keen compositional eye and an indelible sense of place, Leopo has created a film that is both funny and bittersweet.

"A sweaty, urgent, beautifully honest bliss-out." - Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice

"Samuel Kishi Leopo makes an appealing feature debut with this tender, pitch-perfect coming-of-ager." – Variety


 

I AM HAPPINESS ON EARTH / YO SOY LA FELICIDAD DE ESTE MUNDO
(Julián Hernández, Mexico, 2014, 124 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
A Breaking Glass Pictures release.

Opens Friday, August 15

Quad Cinema
34 West 13th Street, New York City
www.quadcinema.com / (212) 255-2243

Laemmle's Playhouse 7
673 E Colorado Blvd, Pasadena, CA
www.laemmle.com / (310) 478-3836

In I Am Happiness on Earth, Emiliano looks at his life with the eyes of a film director, mixing the objective reality with the processes of artistic creation. The story he is filming flounders with his daily life, until his world is trapped in the lens of his camera. Confused, always alone and in front of a screen, now a transfigured reality, but at the same time a measurable, controllable and manipulable one. He listens to a song on a loop: one of those songs you sing or repeat as a prayer and forcing you to remember, believe and convince yourself.

The film is directed by Mexico’s premier queer filmmaker Julián Hernández –the only filmmaker to have won the Berlinale’s Teddy Award for Best Feature Film twice, for A Thousand Clouds of Peace (2003) and Raging Sun, Raging Sky (2009). Starring Hugo Catalán, Alan Ramírez, Andrea Portal, and Gabino Rodríguez I Am Happiness on Earth recently had its world premiere at the Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco, and played at Outfest in Los Angeles and at the Film Society of Lincoln Center as part of NewFest’s lineup.

"I am Happiness on Earth boasts magnificent cinematography and highly sensual scenes.
(Hernández’s) films get under the viewer’s skin.” – Gary M. Kramer, bent/indieWIRE Network



THE NAKED ROOM / EL CUARTO DESNUDO
(Nuria Ibáñez, Mexico, 2013, 67 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
A Magic Lantern release, with the collaboration of Cinema Tropical

August 29-September 4, Exclusive Engagement
Anthology Film Archives

32 Second Avenue (at Second Street), New York City
www.anthologyfilmarchives.com / (212) 505-5181
Nightly screenings at 7pm and 8:45pm; additional screenings at 5:15pm on 8/29 & 8/30

Among the most immensely powerful, exquisitely sensitive, and formally inspired documentary films in recent memory, The Naked Room takes place entirely within the confines of a pediatric therapist’s office in a Mexico City hospital, observing the initial consultations of a succession of deeply troubled kids, and brilliantly transforming this constricted space into a microcosm vast in its metaphorical dimensions. Not content to limit the physical scope of the film to the four walls of the therapist’s office, director Nuria Ibáñez focuses entirely on the faces of the children themselves, as they struggle to express their feelings of severe depression and trauma, and describe the situations that have brought them to this pass. Constructing the film almost entirely out of close-ups on the children, and relegating everything else – the doctor, the parents and guardians of the kids, the décor of the consulting room – off-screen, Ibáñez has created a film that is visually minimalist but that contains multitudes.

The close-ups force us to share the kids’ perspective, and above all to truly see them with a clarity that movies rarely achieve when depicting children. Rather than representing the sentimental notion of the “innocence” of childhood, they come alive as individualized, troubled, yet ultimately vital human beings, fighting to survive emotionally and psychologically in the face of the abuse and dysfunction the world has bequeathed to them. Through the children’s expressions and gestures, The Naked Room paints a vivid picture of a society that inflicts its resentments and frustrations, its insecurities and sense of powerlessness, on those who are entirely unequipped to defend themselves, who have just begun the delicate process of understanding their world and forming their own identities. Shattering yet somehow resisting despair, thanks to the children’s reed-like resilience and astonishing honesty, The Naked Room is a landmark of contemporary documentary filmmaking.

"A haunting exploration of mental illness in children." —Variety






Tropical Uncanny

 

Tropical Uncanny:
Latin American Tropes & Mythologies

August 8 – September 26, 2014
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

A film companion to the exhibit "Under the Same Sun" curated by Pablo León de la Barra, “Tropical Uncanny” is a playful and irreverent revision of some of Latin America's political, social, cultural, and cinematic tropes. Toying with concepts such as the New World, revolution, domestic workers, the favela, and pre-Columbian paradise, this film series challenges and subverts notions of subjectivity and the construction of the otherness south of the border. Mixing fiction, documentary, and experimental work from recent, repertoire, and archival material, as well as suggesting dialogues between filmmakers and visual artists, this program rethinks the representation of Latin America both at home and abroad.

Programmed by Carlos A. Gutiérrez, in collaboration with Jerónimo Rodríguez.

Special Special thanks to Amalia Córdova, Chris Gude, Raúl Guzmán, Pablo León de la Barra, Corey Sabourin, Maria-Christina Villaseñor and Christina Yang.

Thanks to Dora Amorim, CinemaScopio; Agustina Chiarino, Control Z Films; Amanda Guimarães and Rachel Daisy Ellis, Desvia; Marilys Downey; Alex García and Sandro Fiorin, FiGa Films; Natalia Trebik, Le Fresnoy; and Jessy Vega, Interior XIII.

Full Schedule

Friday, August 8, 1pm
‘Remapping the New World’
Journey to a Land Otherwise Known / Voyage En La Terre Autrement Dite
(Laura Huertas Millán, Colombia/France, 2011, 22 min. In French with English subtitles. New York Premiere)
Nefandus (Carlos Motta, U.S./Colombia, 2013, 13 min. In Spanish and Kogi with English subtitles. New York Premiere)
Ex Isto / Ex It (Cao Guimarães, Brazil, 2010, 86 min. In Portuguese, with English subtitles)
Three visual artists reconsider the ‘New World,’ providing provocative alternative cartographies. Laura Huertas Millán’s Journey to a Land Otherwise Know—shot at a tropical greenhouse in Lille, France—uses textual accounts by European colonizers to create a fake ethnography of the New World critical of the ever-prevailing exoticism. In Carlos Motta’s visual essay Nefandus, an indigenous man and a Spanish-speaking man tell stories about acts of sodomy that took place in the Americas during the conquest, while Carlos Guimarães Ex Isto presents a historical provocation imaging French philosopher René Descartes on a tropical journey in Brazil. Followed by a discussion with director Carlos Motta.

Friday, August 15, 1pm
‘Under the Same Stars’
Agarrando pueblo / The Vampires of Poverty
(Luis Ospina and Carlos Mayolo, Colombia, 1978, 27 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Estrellas / Stars (Federico León and Marcos Martínez, Argentina, 2007, 64 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
‘Under the Same Stars’ offers a humorous meditation on the portrayal of poverty in Latin America, and the ways the poor are manipulated by the local and transnational media. Luis Ospina and Carlos Mayolo’s 1978 classic Agarrando Pueblo is a scathing satire of what they characterized as “poverty-porn,” while Federico León and Marcos Martínez’s documentary feature Stars follows a group of residents from a shantytown in the outskirts of Buenos Aires who find professional careers playing poor people in film and television productions.

Friday, August 22, 1pm
‘Gone Native’
Día dos / Day Two
(Dante Cerano, Mexico, 2004, 23 min. In P'urhepecha and Spanish, English subtitles)
The Laughing Alligator (Juan Downey, U.S./Venezuela 1979, 27 min. In English)
Sip’Ohi, l lugar del manduré / Sip’Ohi, Manduré’s Place (Sebastián Lingardi, Argentina, 2011, 63 min. In Wichí with English subtitles)
Three works made by very dissimilar artists present an ideal opportunity to showcase the limits and pitfalls of ethnographic cinema. In Day Two, director Dante Cerano provides an ironic portrait of the second day of a P'urhepecha wedding ceremony. Juan Downey challenges the anthropological gaze of the Yanomami in his irreverent The Laughing Aligator, while in Sebastián Lingardi’s Sip’Ohi, Manduré’s Place, an indigenous man returns to his hometown with the aim of listening and collecting stories of ichí culture, transmitted orally from generation to generation. Followed by a discussion with special guest Amalia Córdova.

Friday, August 29, 1pm
‘Cold Front’
Recife Frio / Cold Tropics
(Kleber Mendonça Filho, Brazil, 2009, 24 min. In Spanish, Portuguese, and French with English subtitles)
Los guantes mágicos / The Magic Gloves (Martín Rejtman, Argentina/France, 2003, 90 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
A fictitious drastic temperature drop in Recife and Buenos Aires offer an excellent starting point for two cherished South American filmmakers to create poignant and multilayered critiques about globalization and late capitalism. Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho (Neighboring Sounds) creates a satirical mockumentary chronicling an odd weather phenomenon and its local effects in Cold Tropics. In the absurdist comedy The Magic Gloves, Argentinean director Martín Rejtman delivers his distinctive deadpan humor in a story about two dysfunctional middle-class couples struggling to make ends meet.

Friday, September 5, 1pm
‘Musical Mayhem’
Touching from a Distance
(Angel Nevarez and Valerie Tevere, U.S., 2008. 6 min. No dialogue)
Marimbas del infierno / Marimbas from Hell (Julio Hernández Cordón, Guatemala/Mexico, 2010, 74 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
In the hybrid comedy Marimbas from Hell, Julio Hernández Cordón tells the feverish story of the improbable artistic collaboration between two wretched musicians: Don Alfonso, a homeless marimba player, and Blacko, a pioneer of Guatemalan heavy metal music. The film is preceded by Angel Nevarez and Valerie Tevere’s Touching from a Distance, which serves as a musical appetizer toying with the idea of the fragmentation of the public space to the rhythms of mariachi music.

Friday, September 12, 1pm
‘Nueva York’
Recordando el Ayer
(Alexandra Cuesta, 2007, 9 min. No dialogue)
Pareces una carreta de esa que no la para ni lo’ bueye / You look like a carriage that not even the oxen can stop (Nelson Carlo, U.S./Dominican Republic, 2012, 85 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
‘Nueva York’ offers an off-kilter representation of the city. Ecuadorean artist Alexandra Cuesta presents an experimental portrayal of Jackson Heights in Recordando el Ayer, where memory and identity are observed through the textures of everyday life. Dominican-born Nelson Carlo, in his elegantly-crafted debut documentary feature film, follows Gladys and her daughter who share their isolated lives in an apartment in Washington Heights, creating an unsettling portrait of the two women.

Friday, September 19, 1pm
‘TV or Not to Be’
Cinépolis: La capital del cine / Cinepolis: The Movie Capital
(Ximena Cuevas, Mexico, 2003, 22 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Ismar (Gustavo Beck, Brazil, 2007, 12 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
Un día / One Day (Leonardo Sagástegui, Peru, 2002, 19 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. New York Premiere)
Tómbola / Raffle (Ximena Cuevas, Mexico, 2001, 8 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
‘TV or Not to Be,’ is the question embraced by Ximena Cuevas, Gustavo Beck and Leonardo Sagástegui. With her characteristic and unflinching humor, Cuevas offers two critical takes on mass media and the society of consumption. Beck sketches a portrait of Ismar, contrasting the naivety of a kid fueled by the allure of television with a person searching for his own identity, and Sagástegui himself becomes a contestant on a popular game show, in his caustic performance-driven piece One Day. Followed by a discussion with director Gustavo Beck.

Saturday, September 20, 6pm
‘The Ordinary Unspoken’
Ebb and Flow / A Onda Traz, O Vento Leva
(Gabriel Mascaro, Brazil/Spain, 2012, 28 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles. New York Premiere)
Hiroshima (Pablo Stoll, Uruguay/Colombia/ Argentina/Spain, 2009, 79 min. No dialogue with English intertitles. New York Premiere)
In ‘The Ordinary Unspoken’ two filmmakers, one Brazilian, the other Uruguayan, push verbal language to its cinematographic limits. Gabriel Mascaro’s Ebb and Flow follows a young deaf man who installs car stereos in a small dealership, while Pablo Stoll presents an unlikely slacker silent film—with the clever use of intertitles— about a young man who sings in a rock band in the sui generis Hiroshima.

Friday, September 26, 1pm
‘Domestic Dialectic’
El palacio / The Palace
(Nicolás Pereda, Mexico/Canada, 2013, 36 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. New York Premiere)
Amelia & Morena (Andrea Franco, Peru/USA, 2010, 10 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Reimon (Rodrigo Moreno, Argentina/Germany, 2014. 72 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
The figure of the maid embodies a plethora of Latin America’s gender, social and class contradictions. In ‘Domestic Dialetic’ three filmmakers present varied fiction and non-fiction perspectives on the realitites of servants in the contemporary world. Nicolás Pereda’s The Palace follows the everyday lives of 17 women who live together and are trained for various jobs, including as domestic workers. Amelia & Morena by Andrea Franco depicts the relationship between a young woman and her long-time maid, and Rodrigo Moreno’s Reimon is a poignant portrait of a young woman who works as a maid in a pretentiously liberal household.

 





Educational Catalog

 

CINEMA TROPICAL'S EDUCATIONAL CATALOG

Subcine + Cinema Tropical, the country’s leading Latino media distributors, are pleased to announce the formation of an alliance designed to serve the needs of American educators and librarians seeking a definitive resource for Latino and Latin American film and video.

Cinema Tropical's online orders are handled by TransitMedia

To order films on our catalog via email, telephone or fax, click here

Click here for Subcine's U.S. Latino Non-Theatrical Catalog

 

 


 

EL ESTUDIANTE

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Subjects: Latin American Studies, Political Studies, Cinema Studies, Argentina
A film by by Santiago Mitre. Argentina, 2011, 110 min.
El Estudiante is a poignant political coming-of-age film that follows a student as he enters the complicated world of university politics.

 


 

LOS QUE SE QUEDAN / THOSE WHO REMAIN

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Subjects: Latin American Studies, Latino Studies, Cultural Studies, Mexico, Migration, Political Studies
A film by by Juan Carlos Rulfo and Carlos Hagerman. Mexico, 2007 96 min.

Those Who Remain shines a light on the families left behind by loved ones who have traveled North for work, while also illuminating the rich glow of the Mexican spirit.

 



ELVIRA

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Subjects: Latin American Studies, Latino Studies, American Studies, Mexico, Migration, Women Studies, Political Studies
A film by Javier Solórzano Casarin, Mexico, 2009, 65 min.
Elvira narrates the drama of an undocumented mother who has become an international symbol for undocumented workers' rights.

 


 

SUITE HABANA

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Subjects: Latin American Studies, Cuba, Political Studies, Film Studies

A film by Fernando Pérez, Cuba/Spain, 2003, 80 min.
A poetic homage to the city of Havana, this breathtaking film portrays Cuba’s capital as no other art form has before.

 



YOUNG REBELS / JÓVENES REBELDES

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Subjects: Latin American Studies, Latino Studies, Cuba, Political Studies, Music, Cultural Studies, Hip-hop
A film by Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck. USA/Cuba, 2005, 70 min.
Young Rebels follows five Cuban hip-hop groups and two producers over the course of a Havana summer.



 

TORO NEGRO

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Subjects: Anthropology, Indigenous Studies, Latin American Studies, Mexico, Cultural Studies, Human Rights

A film by Pedro González-Rubio and Carlos Armella. Mexico, 2005, 87 min.
Fernando Pacheco, a.k.a El Suicida (The Suicide), is a young bullfighter who fights not in big arenas but at popular parties of small Mayan communities in the Yucatán Peninsula.

 



MÁS ALLÁ DEL MAR / BEYOND THE SEA

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Subjects: Latin American Studies, Latino Studies, American Studies, Cuba, Migration, Political Studies

A film by Lisandro Pérez-Rey. USA/Cuba, 2003, 80 min.
Weaving together riveting stories along with rare historical images and footage from present-day Cuba, this film recreates the Mariel Boatlift, a crisis that shook the very foundations of Cuban as well as American society.
 




DEL OLVIDO AL NO ME ACUERDO / I FORGOT, I DON'T REMEMBER

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Subjects: Anthropology, Latin American Studies, Mexico, Cultural Studies, Literature

A film by Juan Carlos Rulfo. Mexico, 1998, 75 min.
Made by the son of famed Mexican writer, Juan Rulfo, purports to be the son’s search for his father among the people who knew him. But as their memory betrays them, the film becomes a brooding reverie on love, memory, death and old age.

 


 

HERMANAS

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Subjects: Latin American Studies, Argentina, Human Rights, Political Studies, Women Studies

A film by Julia Solomonoff. Argentina/Spain, 2005, 88 min.
Exploring the secrets and silences of a family and a society that lived under a decade of fear, complicity with the dictatorship and concealment, Solomonoff debuts with a compelling story in a film that shines with exceptional performances by Valeria Bertuccelli and Ingrid Rubio.

 

 

 





4th Annual Cinema Tropical Awards

 

 


WINNERS

      

      

 

Best Feature Film:
VIOLA

(Matías Piñeiro, Argentina)

Best Documentary Film:
EL ALCALDE / THE MAYOR

(Emiliano Altuna, Carlos F. Rossini, Diego Osorno, Mexico)

Best Director, Feature Film:
Carlos Reygadas, POST TENEBRAS LUX
(Mexico)

Best Director, Documentary Film:
Jose Luis García, LA CHICA DEL SUR / THE GIRL FROM THE SOUTH
(Argentina)

Special Jury Mention:
Ignacio Agüero, EL OTRO DÍA / THE OTHER DAY (Chile)

Best First Film:
TANTA AGUA
 (Ana Guevara and Leticia Jorge, Uruguay)

Best U.S. Latino Film:
MOSQUITA Y MARI (Aurora Guerrero)
WONDER WOMEN! THE UNTOLD STORY OF AMERICAN SUPERHEROINES (Kristy Guevara Flanagan)  
 

The Cinema Tropical AWARDS are presented in partnership with VOCES, Latino Heritage Network of The New York Times Company; Media sponsors: LatAm Cinema and Remezcla. Special thanks to Mario Díaz, Andrea Betanzos, and Tatiana García. 


               Sponsors:                                                     Co-presenting Partner:      

                                                                                                     

Media Sponsors:

    

 

 


 

NOMINATIONS

BEST FICTION FILM

          

- GLORIA (Sebastián Lelio, Chile/Spain, 2013)
- NO (Pablo Larraín, Chile/USA/France/Mexico, 2012)
- POST TENEBRAS LUX (Carlos Reygadas, Mexico/France/Germany/Netherlands, 2012)
- TANTA AGUA | So Much Water (Ana Guevara and Leticia Jorge, Uruguay/Germany/Mexico/Netherlands, 2013)
- VIOLA
(Matías Piñeiro, Argentina, 2012)

  

 
BEST DIRECTOR, FICTION FILM

            

- Sebastián Silva, CRYSTAL FAIRY (Chile, 2013)
- Pablo Larraín, NO (Pablo Larraín, Chile/USA/France/Mexico, 2012)
- Carlos Reygadas, POST TENEBRAS LUX (Mexico/France/Germany/Netherlands,, 2012)
- Ana Guevara and Leticia Jorge, TANTA AGUA | So Much Water
(Uruguay/Germany/Mexico/Netherlands, 2013)
- Matías Piñeiro, VIOLA
(Argentina, 2012)

 
 

BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM

       

- EL ALCALDE | The Mayor (Emiliano Altuna, Carlos F. Rossini, Diego Osorno, Mexico, 2012)
- LA CHICA DEL SUR | The Girl from the South (José Luis García, Argentina, 2012)
- LA GENTE DEL RÍO | The River People
(Martín Benchimol, Pablo Aparo, Argentina, 2012)
- EL HUASO
(Carlo Guillermo Proto, Chile/Canada, 2012)
- EL OTRO DÍA | The Other Day
(Ignacio Agüero, Chile, 2012)

 

 BEST DIRECTOR, DOCUMENTARY FILM

       

- José Luis García, LA CHICA DEL SUR | The Girl from the South (Argentina, 2012)
- Priscilla Padilla, LA ETERNA NOCHE DE LAS DOCE LUNAS | The Eternal Night of the Twelve Moons (Colombia, 2013)
- Martín Benchimol, Pablo Aparo, LA GENTE DEL RÍO | The River People (Argentina, 2012)
- Mercedes Moncada, PALABRAS MÁGICAS (PARA ROMPER UN ENCANTAMIENTO) | Magic Words (Breaking a Spell) (Mexico/Guatemala, 2012)
- Ignacio Agüero, EL OTRO DÍA | The Other Day (Chile, 2012)

 

 
BEST FIRST FILM

                 

 - CARNE DE PERRO | Dog Flesh (Fernando Guzzoni, Chile/France/Germany, 2012)

- EL LIMPIADOR | The Cleaner (Adrián Saba, Peru, 2012)
- MELAZA | Molasses (Carlos Díaz Lechuga, Cuba/France/Panama, 2012)
- TANTA AGUA | So Much Water (Ana Guevara and Leticia Jorge, Uruguay/Germany/Mexico, 2013)
- LOS SALVAJES | The Wild Ones (Alejandro Fadel, Argentina, 2012)

BEST U.S. LATINO FILM

                

 - AMERICAN PROMISE (Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson, USA, 2013)

- FILLY BROWN (Youssef Delara and Michael D. Olmos, USA, 2012)
- MOSQUITA Y MARI (Aurora Guerrero, USA, 2012)
- REPORTERO (Bernardo Ruiz, USA, 2012)
- WONDER WOMEN! THE UNTOLD STORY OF AMERICAN SUPERHEROINES (Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, USA, 2012)

 

 


 


FICTION JURY

Melissa Anderson is a regular contributor to Artforum and Artforum.com; she also writes for the Village Voice. She was the film editor and a film critic for Time Out New York, and a member of the New York Film Festival selection committee between 2009 and 2012. 

 

 

 

Mike Maggiore programs the premieres for New York's Film Forum alongside Director Karen Cooper. He is also responsible for promoting many of the premieres during their runs at Film Forum. He has served on the committees of Film Independent's Truer Than Fiction Award and the Sundance Documentary Fund; and was the Assistant Director of the Film and Video Department of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

 

 

 Julia Solomonoff is an award-winning Argentinean writer, director and producer. She is the writer and director of The Last Summer of la Boyita (2009), which was co-produced by Pedro Almodóvar’s El Deseo SA and won over 20 international awards. Her directorial debut, Hermanas (2005), premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. As a producer, her credits include Julia Murat’s Historias que existem quando lembradas and Ana Piterbarg's Everybody’s Got a Plan. A Fulbright Scholar, Solomonoff teaches Film Directing at Columbia University School of the Arts.

 

 

DOCUMENTARY JURY

Chris Allen is the Founder and Director of UnionDocs, a Center for Documentary Art based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. After graduating from Columbia University and studying at Trinity College Dublin, Allen worked as a social entrepreneur, documentary director, and new media artist. His individual works and collaborative projects have been exhibited at the MoMA, Harvard’s Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, the Volksbühne Theatre, DirektorenHaus in Berlin, Independent Film Week, Sonár, DIVA, and Conflux Festivals, among many other venues.

 

Paco de Onís most recently released Granito (Sundance 2011), a documentary detective story focused on the role of filmic and archival documentation in the prosecution of a genocide case against Guatemalan generals. He previously produced The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court (Sundance 2009), and State of Fear, a film about Peru’s 20-year “war on terror” based on the findings of the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Paco is a partner at Skylight Pictures, and previously produced documentaries for PBS, National Geographic, and a range of other programs.   

 

Anita Reher is the Executive Director of the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar. She is an international consultant with twenty years of experience connecting filmmakers to the documentary community and was a co-founder of the European Documentary Network (EDN). She began her career with the MEDIA Program of the European Union working for the creative DOCUMENTARY project.

 

 

 

U.S. LATINO JURY

Beth Janson is the Executive Director of the Tribeca Film Institute (TFI). She joined TFI in 2004 to launch its Tribeca All Access program, which quickly grew to become an important forum for US-based filmmakers from diverse backgrounds to promote their projects. She held a variety of positions prior to TFI including Programming Director for the 2003 Newport International Film Festival and working as a part of the HBO Documentary Films/Cinemax Reel Life programming team. At HBO, she worked on American Standoff, The Young and the Dead, Journeys with George and Shelter Dogs.


Daniel Loría is the Overseas Editor at BoxOffice. His writing has also appeared on Indiewire, The L Magazine, Remezcla, Not Coming to a Theater Near You, and the official blogs of Cinema Tropical and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

 

 

Maria-Christina Villaseñor is an independent curator, writer, media maker and consultant on nonprofit arts administration and fundraising. From 1996 to 2007, she curated film and media arts exhibitions for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York as well as the Guggenheim Museums in Berlin and Bilbao. She has also guest-curated media programs for numerous organizations internationally such as Creative Time, Exit Art, the Havana International Film Festival, and the Museo de Bellas Artes Buenos Aires.

 

 

 

NOMINATING COMMITTEE

- Cecilia Barrionuevo, programmer, Mar del Plata Film Festival, Argentina
- Raúl Camargo, programmer, Valdivia Film Festival, Chile
- John Campos Gómez, director, Transcinema Film Festival, Peru
- Inti Cordera, director, DocsDF Film Festival, Mexico
- Christine Davila, programmer, Sundance, Los Angeles Film Festival, Ambulante USA
- Eugenio del Bosque, director, Cine Las Américas, USA
- Raciel del Toro, Cinergia, Costa Rica
- Vanessa Erazo, film programmer and journalist, indieWIRE/LatinoBuzz, Remezcla, USA
- Lisa Franek, programmer, San Diego Latino Film Festival, USA
- Robert A. Gomez, film journalist, Cinemathon, Venezuela
- Jaie Laplante, director, Miami Film Festival, USA
- Agustín Mango, film journalist, Hollywood Reporter, Argentina
- Jim Mendiola, programmer, CineFestival, San Antonio, USA
- Luis Ortiz, director, Latino Public Broadcasting, USA
- Rafael Sampaio, programmer, Sao Paulo Latin American Film Festival, Brazil
- Eva Sangiorgi, programmer, FICUNAM, Mexico
- Gerwin Tamsma, programmer, Rotterdam Film Festival, Netherlands