Tribeca Film Festival announced the first half of its lineup this morning, featuring eight Latin American and Latino-themed titles thus far.
Opening the International Narrative Competition is the world premiere of Madly an Argentine-Australian-American-Indian-Japanese-English production that is an international anthology of short films exploring love in all its permutations. The film is directed by Mexican actor Gael García Bernal, Chilean filmmaker Sebastian Silva, as well as, Mia Wasikowska, Anurag Kashyap, Sion Sono, and Natasha Khan.
Also in the International Narrative Competition is Icaros: A Vision (pictured left) by Leonor Caraballo and Matteo Norzi from Peru and the United States. An American woman in search of a miracle embarks on an adventure in the Peruvian Amazon. At a healing center, she finds hope in the form of an ancient psychedelic plant known as ayahuasca. With her perception forever altered, she bonds with a young indigenous shaman who is treating a group of psychonauts seeking transcendence, companionship, and the secrets of life and death. Tribeca will mark the film’s world premiere.
Receiving its North American premiere is Argentine feature The Tenth Man / El Rey del Once written and directed by Daniel Burman. Burman (All In) returns to Tribeca with this tender exploration of community, and the intricacies of the father-son relationship. Ariel is summoned to Buenos Aires by his distant father, who runs a Jewish aid foundation in El Once, the bustling Jewish neighborhood where he spent his youth.
In the World Documentary Competition Memories of a Penitent Heart (pictured right) from Puerto Rico will have its world premiere. Filmmaker Cecilia Aldarondo, decades after the death of her uncle, Miguel, who, like many gay men in the 1980s, moved from Puerto Rico to New York City, locates his estranged lover to understand the truth, and in the process opens up long-dormant family secrets.
Four Latino films, will screen in the Viewpoints section. Brazilian Califórnia by Marina Person will receive its North American premiere. Califórnia is a coming-of-age tale about a high school student, Estela, growing up in São Paulo in the 1980s. Estela is doing all she can to get to California to visit her glamorous and cultured uncle. While focused on keeping her grades up, her life is complicated by romance, sex, and social pressures.
From Mexico The Charro of Toluquilla / El Charro De Toluquilla (pictured left) directed by José Villalobos Romero is a documentary following Jaime García who appears to be the quintessentially machismo mariachi singer, yet beneath his magnetic confidence lies a man struggling to maintain a relationship with his estranged family while living as an HIV-positive man. This will mark its international premiere.
Also in its international premiere is The Human Thing / La Cosa Humana by Cuban filmmaker Gerardo Chijona. The film opens with a thief breaking into the home of a famous writer, and unknowingly stealing what turns out to be the only manuscript of his upcoming story. In desperate need of money, he submits it to a contest, which will see him competing with the very writer he robbed.
Actor Martinez, directed and written by Nathan Silver and Mike Ott will have its North American Premiere. The film follows Arthur Martinez, a computer repairman and aspiring actor who commissions indie directors Ott and Silver to film his life. In the directors' first collaboration, we see them follow Arthur as he goes to work, drives around, and auditions for a love interest (Lindsay Burdge), leading them to question the meaning of the project, and ultimately that of identity and stardom.
The 15th edition of the Tribeca Film Festival will take place April 13-24 in New York City.
