Cielo by Alison McAlpine
The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, one of the world’s premier showcases of nonfiction cinema, announced last week its lineup of features and short films for its 21st edition, including several titles from and about Latin American including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico.
The New Docs program, which is the festival's main competition will feature 42 titles—32 features and 10 shorts—including several Latino titles. In 306 Hollywood, Venezuelan-American sibling directors Elan Bogarin and Jonathan Bogarin embark on an imaginative exploration of their beloved grandmother home after she dies, sifting through her belongings, and their own cherished memories, to discover her essence.
In Erick Stoll, Chase Whiteside's América, three brothers come together to care for their aging Mexican grandmother, América, after their father is unexpectedly arrested, This sensitive portrait delicately captures the frustrations and connections that evolve as they navigate her physical decline and their expectations of one another.
Alison McAlpine's Cielo is a wondrous exploration of the meeting of heaven and Earth in this dynamic exchange between humans and the starry skies of Chile’s Atacama Desert, while the Mexican documentary film David. The Return to Land / David. El regreso a la tierra by Anaïs Huerta follows 34-year-old David, Haitian, French, and adopted by Jewish parents, who embarks on a mission to better understand who he is in this beautifully nuanced observation of self-discovery.
Jayson McNamara's Messenger on a White Horse / El mensajero pays homage to the fearless investigative reporting of the Buenos Aires Herald during the disappearances and murders of Argentines between 1976 and 1983, utilizes impeccable archival footage and testimonies from surviving members of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo as well as lead newspaper editor Robert Cox.
Juan Pablo González's Mexican short film Las Nubes follows a father who drives through an unidentified countryside, while his car becomes a space for reflection as he recounts the impact of cartel violence on his home and family.
In Lisa F. Jackson, Sarah Teale's Patrimonio, when a multinational corporation attempts to covertly develop plans to build a resort on the fishermen’s coast in Todos Santos, Mexico, the locals unite for a momentous and riveting fight for their resources and their heritage—their patrimonio.
Having its world premiere in the festival is Katie Galloway and Dawn Valadez's The Pushouts, an inspiring film follows the transformative work of Dr. Victor Rios, a former gang member and high school dropout, as he works to support students, through tools for self-reflection and expression, in an educational system that is failing to reach them.
Also screening in its world premiere, is the Brazilian experimental documentary A Singular Garden / Um Jardim Singular by Monica Klemz, which blends old and new images of the garden next to the presidential palace in Rio de Janeiro and incorporates natural sound as a way to connect past and present.
Anayansi Prado and Heather Courtney follow the gripping and vital stories of three DACA students unfold as they work for immigrant rights, and the future of their families, after being banned from attending Georgia’s top universities or receiving in-state tuition in their film The Unafraid.
Also screening out of competition in the Invited Program is the Chilean film Solitary Land / Tierra Sola by Tiziana Panizza, an innovative meditation on Easter Island and its indigenous inhabitants uses historical and present-day footage to illustrate the legacy of colonial exploitation in one of the world’s most remote inhabited locales—a place of beauty, isolation, and tradition.
The 21st annual festival will take place April 5 – 8, 2018, in Durham, North Carolina.
