The Museum of the Moving Image Announces a Series on Latin American Science Fiction Cinema of the 21st Century

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The Museum of the Moving Image in New York City has announced the series ‘Uchronias and Dystopian Futures: Latin American Science Fiction Cinema of the 21st Century’ to take place April 14 - July 21 in conjunction with the exhibition Mundos Alternos: Art and Science Fiction in the Americas at Queens Museum.

This film series, organized by guest curator Itala Schmelz, takes a decolonial perspective on Latin American science fiction cinema of the 21st century. The eight feature films and one short film originate from Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Costa Rica, Cuba, and Mexico, among others and offer a unique focus on the present while reimagining the future. They range in tone from the fresh comedy of César Caro’s Third World /Tercer mundo and the intelligently sarcastic humor of Fernando Spiner’s Goodbye Dear Moon / Adiós querida luna; to the combination of sci-fi and horror in Oscar Campo’s I’m Another /Yo soy otro or the video art experimentation of Juan Daniel Molero’s Videofilia (y otros síndromes virales.

A pointed political consciousness moves each of the directors to create fiction from documentary references or materials that address current socio-cultural conditions. Such is the case of The Project of the Century / La obra del siglo by Carlos Machado, a fictional film that includes archival footage and is set near the ruins of a Soviet-backed nuclear power plant in Cuba. Adirley Queirós’s White Out, Black In / Branco sai, preto fica also combines docufiction and Afrofuturism in portraying two victims of police brutality; whereas Amat Escalante uses science fiction as a means to boost evidence of an ominous reality in The Untamed / La región salvaje