Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed by Hernán Rosselli
Now in its 24th year, The Museum of Modern Art’s annual Doc Fortnight: Festival of International Nonfiction and Media presents adventurous new nonfiction and hybrid fiction cinema from around the world. This year’s edition will screen seven Latin American films—six features and one short—from Argentina, Mexico, and Peru.
The selection includes the Argentine film Collective Monologue / Monólogo colectivo by Jessica Sarah Rinland; the Argentine trilogy The Triptych of Mondongo / El tríptico de Mondongo by renowned auteur Mariano Llinás, composed of Part 1: The Tightrope Walker (El equilibrista), Part 2: Portrait of Mondongo (Retrato de Mondongo), and Part 3: Kunst der farbe; the Peruvian feature Night Has Come / Vino la noche by Paolo Tizón; the Argentine film Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed / Algo viejo, algo nuevo, algo prestado by Hernán Rosselli; and the Mexican short film MÚSICAS by Lila Avilés.
Through the lens of Argentine-British director Rinland, Collective Monologue unfolds in a community of zoos and animal rescue centers across Argentina, capturing intimate, fragmented moments. As the histories of these institutions are revealed, dedicated workers care for the remaining enclosed animals, fostering a mutual bond that transcends the imagined boundaries between humans and animals.
Argentine fabulist Mariano Llinás returns with a new trilogy, The Triptych of Mondongo, an exploration of creativity, friendship, power, kitsch, mythmaking, portraiture, failure, delusion, egos, and alter egos. Invited by Mondongo—an iconoclastic Argentine art collective named after a colonial-era tripe stew—to document their creation of a baptistry out of colorful plasticine (The Tightrope Walker), Llinás grows restless, and the collaboration begins to go off the rails. He attempts to outdo the artists at their own game (Portrait of Mondongo), taking Johannes Itten’s seminal 1961 study of color theory—the inspiration for Mondongo’s work Baptisterio de los colores—as the basis for his own poetic and comedic flights of fancy (Kunst der farbe).
Paolo Tizón’s Night Has Come is a portrait of an elite military unit in Peru and a powerful meditation on innocence and experience, fragility and brutality. Young recruits, escaping girlfriend troubles and estranged parents back home, endure grueling physical and mental tests to prepare for surveillance, counterinsurgency, and combat missions in the VRAEM, Peru’s so-called “cocaine valley,” a hotbed of drug trafficking and violence.
Hernán Rosselli's Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed follows the Felpetos, a working-class family running a well-established underground sports betting business. Following the father’s death, the family operation is now led by the matriarch.
Award-winning director Lila Avilés’ short film MÚSICAS will screen in the Doc Fortnight Shorts 2 section, titled “The Music of Sound,” which explores the manifold powers of sound and music in film. The short follows Leticia Gallardo and her all-female band, Mujeres del Viento Florido—musicians from more than 60 Indigenous communities across Mexico—as they travel from the mountainous region of Tlahuitoltepec to Oaxaca and Mexico City, bringing joyous popular music and a brassy defiance of centuries of persecution.
The 2025 edition of MoMA Doc Fortnight will take place February 20–March 6, 2025, in New York City.
