El Velador / The Night Watchman, the most recent documentary film by Natalia Almada, will have its U.S. theatrical premiere run starting June 14 at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, followed by a tour across the U.S., and will have its national television premiere on September 27 as part of the 25th anniversary season of PBS’ POV, as it was announced today.
Hailed by A.O. Scott (The New York Times) as "an unsettlingly quiet, even lyrical film about a world made and unmade by violence," Almada's film accompanies Martín, the night watchman who guards a labyrinthine graveyard in Culiacán, capital of Sinaloa and Mexico’s drug heartland. The film had its world premiere at New Directors/New Films Festival in 2011, and was an official selection of the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight last year.
The film -an Icarus Films release, will have an exclusive one-week theatrical engagement June 14-20 at MoMA, and then will travel to other cities across the country: Northwest Film Center in Portland (July 6-8); Northwest Film Forum in Seattle (July 6-12); UCLA Film and Television Archive in Los Angeles (July 13); Pacific Film Archives in Berkeley (July 15); the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (August 4 and 6); the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston (September); the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (September 8); the Cleveland Museum of Art (September 12); the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus (September 25-26); the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis (September 27-28).
Almada, who was the recipient of the 2009 Sundance Documentary Directing Award for her film El General and was the recipient of the 2011 Alpert Award, will be at MoMA for a discussion following the screening of her film on Monday, June 18 at 7pm. Additionally she'll will also be present for a conversation with Mexican-American director Lourdes Portillo on Saturday, June 23 at 7:30pm also at MoMA, on the occasion of the film series "Lourdes Portillo: La Cineasta Inquisitiva."
