Memory House
The Chicago Film Festival has announced the lineup for its 56th annual edition, which includes five Latin American films in competition: two from Mexico, and one each from Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela, streaming October 14 - 25.
Participating in the international competition is New Order / Nuevo órden by Michel Franco, recent winner of the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Imagine the French Revolution transposed on contemporary Mexico City in the hands of provocative Mexican filmmaker Franco (Daniel and Ana, After Lucia, Chronic). The result: a riveting and prescient dystopian drama that serves as a disquieting cautionary tale for a society marked by extreme class divisions.
Just beyond the walls of a heavily guarded home where a lavish upper-class wedding is underway, protests, chaos, and violence have seized the streets. The shocking outburst of class warfare soon bleeds into the party, setting into motion a brutal coup d’état, all seen through the eyes of the sympathetic young bride and the servants who work for—and against—her wealthy family. Deploying a salvo of arresting images, New Order breathlessly traces the collapse of one political system as a more harrowing replacement springs up in its wake.
Things We Dare Not Do
Also from Mexico, Bruno Santamaría’s Things We Dare Not Do / Cosas que no hacemos will participate both in the Documentary and the Out-Look competitions. The film is set in the small town of El Roblito, where wild horses gallop through the streets and children roam nearby mangrove forests and life appears idyllic. But 16-year-old Ñoño has a secret that runs counter to the local culture defined by machismo; Ñoño loves to dress in women’s clothes. In this gorgeously photographed snapshot of rural Mexico, cinematographer-turned-director Bruno Santamaría reveals repression, violence, and beauty in equal measures and the exquisite story of an individual who bravely defies the gender norms of their society.
Also competing for Best Documentary, the Argentine-Spanish film Transocéanicas follows a years-long correspondence between the filmmakers Meritxell Colell and Lucia Vassallo. This poetic, intimate work finds two friends separated by geography yet bound by their strong emotional connection and the art of the moving image. Meritxell Colell (Facing the Wind), who lives in Barcelona, and Buenos Aires-based Lucía Vassallo (Línea 137), share moments from their lives both beautiful and banal as they craft an achingly personal dialogue about memory, their current environs, and past and present. Beautifully edited and elegantly structured, Transoceánicas is a vivid, layered film about enduring friendship, fierce femininity, and cinema’s capacity to transcend gulfs of space and time.
The Special
Having its world premiere in the New Directors Competition is the Venezuela film The Special / Especial by Ignacio Márquez. In this thoughtful and uplifting debut, the profoundly charming Chuo is having to navigate the challenges of early adulthood with Down Syndrome. He feels a growing need for independence from his father José, who struggles to provide and care for his son as he grapples with demons past and the disappointments of dreams deferred. When Chuo lands a job at a small graphic design studio, he begins to find community and discover purpose and a sense of self. Long parted by an ocean of silence and shame, will father and son be able to fulfill the promise of Chuo’s dreams and build a common future?
Also participating in the New Directors Competition, the Brazilian film Memory House / Casa de Antiguidades will participate in the New Directors Competition. Set in southern Brazil—in a strange Austrian colony of sorts lost in time—the debut feature by João Paulo Miranda Maria follows an indigenous-Black man, Cristovam, who has arrived from the north to take a job at a milk factory. In the face of unrelenting xenophobia and racism, he finds refuge in an abandoned house filled with art objects and folkloric memorabilia that connect him back to his roots. Soon, the mysterious relics start to provoke a metamorphosis within him.
Endowed with a newfound sense of identity and power, Cristovam’s quiet forbearance turns to emboldened action—and tension mounts, building to a mythic, stunning conclusion. Rich, evocative photography and an unsettling tone envelop this uncanny tale that unmasks the social, racial, and political tensions facing Brazil today.
