Cinema Tropical

Indocumentales Celebrates 2nd Anniversary in NYC and San Francisco

 

Indocumentales / Undocumentaries: The US/Mexico Interdependent Film Series, the innovative collaborative and itinerant series of documentary film screenings and dialogues on immigration issues, created by what moves you?, Cinema Tropical, and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University is celebrating its second anniversary with a special of screenings in New York City and San Francisco featuring Luis Argueta’s abUSed: The Postville Raid (pictured) and Natalia Almada's Al Otro Lado.

On Wednesday, May 9, the series will present abUSed: The Postville Raid at the King Juan Carlos Center at New York University followed by an interactive discussion with the filmmaker Luis Argueta and leading immigration activists. The documentary film tells the story on the infamous Iowa raid in 2008, the largest immigration raid in the history of the country, that resulted on the detention of 389 immigrant workers from Mexico and Guatemala, and that had devastating effects of the immigration policies on communities, families and children.

On Thursday, May 24, Indocumentales will screen Natalia Almada’s Al Otro Lado at the Artists’ Television Access in San Francisco in partnership with Cine+Mas. Almada’s acclaimed documentary tells the story of a young Mexican aspiring composer in Sinaloa who faces two choices to better his life: trafficking drugs or crossing the border into the United States.

The series was designed to inform, inspire, and enable an open exchange of views on some of today’s pressing immigration-related issues, by showcasing documentary feature films by directors from both sides of the border. Each screening is followed by an informal interactive discussion with guests of diverse backgrounds, sectors and experience.

Indocumentales began in New York City, on Cinco de Mayo (May 5) of 2010, at NYU’s King Juan Carlos Center, and has since been hosted at a variety of venues in the New York area, and across the country including Tucson, Arizona; Madison, Wisconsin; Washington D.C.; New Orleans, Louisiana; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, among other places. In addition to public screenings and dialogues, workshops tailored to engage educators, parents and youth have also been organized and efforts are currently underway to develop K-12 teaching materials

Among other films, the series has featured Los que se quedan / Those Who Remain (Carlos Hagerman and Juan Carlos Rulfo); Mi vida dentro / My Life Inside (Lucía Gajá); Farmingville (Carlos Sandoval and Catherine Tambini); and Elvira (Javier Solórzano Casarin).






Chilean Film DE JUEVES A DOMINGO Wins IndieLisboa Film Fest

 

The Chilean film De jueves a domingo / Thursday till Sunday (pictured) by Dominga Sotomayor was the big winner of the 9th edition of the IndieLisboa International Independent Film Festival which ended today in Portugal. Sotomayor's debut feature film won the City of Lisbon Award as Best Feature Film of the festival with a cash prize of 10,000 euros. The film which also received the top prize at the Rotterdam Film Festival last January is a road movie that is set in and around the car of a middle-class family on a trip to the north of Chile.

Additionally, the Brazilian short film Praça Walt Disney by Renata Pinheiro and Sergio Oliveira received a Special Mention from the short film jury.
 





Latino Films Announced for the Seattle Film Festival


The Seattle International Film Festival announced today the lineup for its 2012 edition, running May 17 through June 10, as it was reported by indieWIRE. This year's selection includes a handful of Latino films including the Chilean film Que pena tu boda / Fuck My Wedding by Nicolás López, a comedy about a rushed married due to an unplanned pregnancy and a woman who threatens to ruin it; the Argentine film Nosilatiaj.La belleza / Nosilatiaj.Beauty by Daniela Seggiaro, the story of an indigenous girl, working for a rich family, who's hair is unjustly cut, jeopardizing the ties to her culture; the Brazilian film A novela das 8  / Prime Time Soap by Odilon Rocha, a fictional drama set in 1978 in Brazil during the days of disco and the dictatorship of President Ernesto Geisel.

Also, this year's lineup includes 360, the most recent film by Brazilian filmmaker Fernando Meirelles inspired by Arthur Schnitzler's classic La Ronde and starring Anthony Hopkins, Rachel Weisz and Jude Law; and Fugly! by Mexican director Alfredo de Villa, a comedy set in New York City and starring John Leguizamo and Rosie Perez.

 





Carlos Diegues Selected as Head of Camera d'or Jury at Cannes

The Cannes Film Festival has announced that the veteran Brazilian director Carlos Diegues will chair the jury for this year's Camera d'or prize which is awarded to the best first film in the Official Selection, the Directors' Fortnight or in the Critics' Week sections of the French festival. This year 22 international films will be competing for the award including the Latin American films La playa by Juan Andrés Arango (Colombia), and Villegas by Gonzal Tobal (Argentina).

The other members of the Camera d'or Jury are Italian journalist Gloria Satta, Remy Chevrin from the French Association of Film Cinematographers, Herve Icovic from France's Federation of Cinema, Audiovisual and Multimedia Industries, Michel Andriey from France's Society of Film Directors and French Union of Film Critic's Francis Gavelle.

Throughout his stunning career, spanning over five decades, Diegues has directed directed more than 20 feature films, documentaries and shorts, including Xica da Silvia (1976), Bye Bye Brazil (1980), Orfeu (1999) and God is Brazilian (2003), among others. The Brazilian director and the rest of the jury will announce the winner at the festival's closing ceremony, set on May 27th.





Hefty Latin American Presence at the LA Film Fest

 

The Los Angeles Film Festival just announced their 2012 line-up. With a total of over 62 feature length films and documentaries, 79 shorts, and 40 music videos of US and international selections, many of these selections include various Latin American films from Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala, Chile, Argentina, and Cuba.

This year La brújula la lleva el muerto / The Compass is Carried by the Dead Man (Arturo Pons, Mexico) and De domingo a jueves / Thursday till Sunday (Dominga Sotomayor, Chile) will be screening their US Premiere as part of the Narrative Competition, whilst Cuates de Australia / Drought (Everado González, Mexico) will be screening its US Premiere at the festival in the Documentary Competition.

The International Showcase of the festival will be screening four Latin American films: Canícula (José Álvarez, Mexico), El último Elvis / The Last Elvis (Armando Bo, Argentina, pictured), O som ao redor / Neighboring Sounds (Kleber Mendoça Filho, Brazil), and El árbol de las fresas / The Strawberry Tree (Simone Rapisarda Casanova, Canada/Cuba/ Italy). The Summer Showcase section will feature the Latino docs Reportero (Bernardo Ruiz, USA/Mexico), and La Camioneta: The Journey of One American School Bus (Mark Kendall, USA/ Guatemala) and Searching for Sugar Man (Malik Bendjelloul, USA). And finally, the Cuban zombie flick Juan of the Dead (Alejandro Brugués, Cuba, pictured left) will also be show in The Beyond section of the film.

The 18th edition of the Los Angeles Film Festival will run form June 14 through June 24. Click here for the complete lineup.

 





Peruvian Film LAS MALAS INTENCIONES Wins Cine Las Americas in Austin


The Cine Las Americas Festival celebrating its 15th anniversary announced the winners of its most recent edition that ran April 24-29. Peruvian film Las malas intenciones / The Bad Intentions by Rosario García-Montero was the big winner of this year's festival receiving the prizes for Best Film and the Audience Award. The jury gave a couple of special prizes: a Special Jury Award for Individual Performance to Kisha Tikina Burgos for her performance in the Puerto Rico/US co-production Under My Nails by Arí Maniel Cruz; and a Special Jury Award for Ensemble Performance to Andrés Almeida and Jessy Bulbo for their leading roles in the Mexican film El lenguaje de los machetes / Machete Language by Kyzza Terrazas.

The prize for Best Documentary went to the Canadian-Cuban co-production El árbol de las fresas / The Strawberry Tree by Simone Rapisarda Casanova, and the jury gave a Special Mention to the Mexican film Morir de pie / Die Standing Up by Jacaranda Correa. The Audience Award in the documentary category was for Trisha Ziff's La maleta mexicana / The Mexican Suitcase.

Click here for the complete list of winners.