Walls by Pablo Iraburu and Migueltxo Molina
The Margaret Mead Film Festival announced today the lineup for its 2016 edition taking place October 13-16 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and featuring several Latin American productions, as well as Latino-themed films. With this year's theme, “Re:Frame,” the festival invites viewers to probe their own perspectives on the world while celebrating stories and works of art that provide opportunities to see things anew.
Having its world premiere at the festival is the Brazilian film Under the Clouds / Das Nuvens Pra Baixo by Marco Antonio Gonçalves and Eliska Altmann, in which five Brazilian women reflect on their lives in a Brazilian slum today vis-à-vis a best-selling diary account of a favela from the 1960s.
The 2016 Mead Festival will also feature the U.S. premiere of Casa Blanca by Aleksandra Maciuszek about a young Cuban man with Down syndrome grapples with new responsibilities when his mother falls ill. Having their New York premiere at the festival are the documentary films Salero by Mike Plunkett and Damiana Kryygi by Alejandro Fernández Mouján, a Argentinean-Paraguayan coproduction.
Set in Bolivia, Salero tells the story of a young salt gatherer living on the Salar de Uyuni, who becomes the last link between the old world and the new one. In Damiana Kryygi, activists fight to provide a proper burial for a young Aché girl who was kidnapped by white settlers in Paraguay in the 19th century.
Salero by Mike Plunkett
Indivisible by Hilary Linder is an intimate and urgently relevant depiction of the immigration debate and its impact on children caught in the crosshairs, this new documentary tells real-life stories of families who have been torn apart by federal policies.
In Zapatista Chronicle by Thor Anderson, women play a crucial role in one of history’s most successful revolutionary experiments. Walls by the Spanish filmmakers Pablo Iraburu and Migueltxo Molina is a journey to four borders and the physical walls that mark them: between Mexico and the U.S., Spain and Morocco, Israel and Palestine, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
The Peruvian short film Sonia’s Dream / El sueño de Sonia by Diego Sarmiento follows Sonia Mamani as she takes her passion for Peruvian cuisine on the road, traveling the continent and teaching women how to cook, while the short film A History of Cuban Dance by Lucy Walker is an immersive virtual reality experience filmed on location captures Cuban dancers in action.
Rounding up the Latino presence at this year's Margaret Mead Film Festival are Farewell Ferris Wheel by Jamie Sisley and Miguel Martínez in which Mexican workers in the U.S. carnival industry weigh opportunity vs. exploitation as they navigate a controversial visa system; Adriana Vila Guevara's Belén about a musician and cocoa farmer in a small Afro-Venezuelan village who become a source of inspiration far and wide; and the short film Fishermen Without a Sea by Lucas Bonetti, which follows Rio de Janeiro’s fishermen and environmentalists as they try to maintain their way of life in the face of severe environmental degradation.
