Buy Me a Gun by Julio Hernández Cordón
The Film Society of Lincoln Center and Cinema Tropical announce the fourth edition of Neighboring Scenes, the annual festival of contemporary Latin American cinema, comprising 13 features and 10 shorts with eight filmmakers in person, and programmed by Cinema Tropical’s Carlos A. Gutiérrez and Cecilia Barrionuevo, artistic director of the Mar del Plata International Film Festival.
Highlighting recent productions from across the region, this impressive slate of premieres showcases the breadth of styles, techniques, and approaches employed by Latin American filmmakers today. Neighboring Scenes spans a wide geographic range, featuring established auteurs as well as fresh talent from the international festival scene.
The Opening Night selections is Belmonte, directed by Uruguayan filmmaker Federico Veiroj. This emotionally layered and often hilarious movie follows a successful artist as he prepares for a major exhibit in the midst of a family crisis. The Centerpiece selection is Carlos Reygadas’s Our Time, “a film of considerable visual poetry” (Jonathan Romney, Screen Daily) starring Reygadas alongside his own wife and children in a bold exploration of marriage and intimacy.
This year’s lineup includes award winners from festivals around the world, including Joaquín Cociña and Cristóbal León’s animated docu-horror-fairy-tale The Wolf House (2018 Cinema Tropical Best First Film), Iván Fund’s There Will Come Soft Rains (Mar del Plata IFF Special Jury Award), Mauricio Alfredo Ovando’s Still Burn (Best Director and FIPRESCI awards, 2018 Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema), and Nuria Ibañez’s A Wild Stream (Best Mexican Documentary at the Morelia Film Festival). Several films in the festival were highlights of Cannes 2018, notably Renée Nader Messora & João Salaviza’s 16mm-shot The Dead and the Others (Un Certain Regard Special Jury Prize winner), Alejandro Fadel’s genre-bending horror film Murder Me, Monster (Un Certain Regard), and Julio Hernández Cordón’s Buy Me a Gun (Directors’ Fortnight), described as a cross between The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Mad Max.
The lineup also includes multiple debut features, including Óscar Catacora’s Ozu-esque Eternity, Ewerton Belico & Samuel Marotta’s Low Center, and Ignacio Juricic Merillán’s Enigma. This year’s Neighboring Scenes will show a selection of short films by Art of the Real and New York Film Festival alum Eduardo Williams, one of the recipients of the 2019 Lincoln Center Awards for Emerging Artists, which recognizes diverse and exceptional talents across the arts each year. The program will include the North American premiere of his latest film, Parsi (in collaboration with Mariano Blatt), followed by a Q&A with Williams. Also returning to the Film Society is fellow Art of the Real alum Camila José Donoso with her latest film, Nona. If they soak me, I’ll burn them., which features a mix of digital, video, and 16mm.
