Joaquín Rodríguez, Morelia Film Fest Programmer, Dies

Joaquín Rodríguez, who was one of the original founders and who served as current programmer of the Morelia Film Festival in Mexico, died yesterday. Born in Durango, he attended Universidad Iberoamericana and worked primarily as a film critic. Since 1988 he worked for numerous publications including Primer Plano, Cinemanía, Cine Premiere, Toma, D.F., El Financiero and El Universal.

He was also an actor, having appeared in more than 20 productions since 1993 and some films including Julián Hernández's Raging Sun, Raging Sky / Rabioso sol, rabioso cielo (2009). Trough programming, criticism and education he tirelessly supported the development and recognition of recent Mexican cinema.

His death elicited messages of condolence by different members of the Mexican film community in social media. "Tireless partner of festivals and good times. We will miss you", wrote actor and director Diego Luna. In other Twitter messages, screenwriter and director Guillermo Arriaga, as well as the Morelia Film Festival, the Mexican Film Institute (IMCINE), the National Cinematheque among others, regretted his death.

Photo credit: Morelia Film Festival.

MoMA Announces Retrospective on Prominent Filmmaker Lourdes Portillo

The Museum of Modern Art has announced the retrospective film series “Lourdes Portillo: La Cineasta Inquisitiva”, to take place June 22 – 30 in New York City with the presence of the filmmaker at select screenings. For over 30 years, Portillo’s award-wining films have explored Latin American, Mexican, and Chicano experiences and social-justice issues.

In her signature hybrid style, she has produced and directed over a dozen works as a visual artist, investigative journalist, and activist. Born in Chihuahua, Mexico and raised in Los Angeles, Portillo studied at the San Francisco Art Institute in the 1970s and 1980s, where she was immersed in Chicano and avant-garde cinema, social-issue documentary film, and feminist and Latin American politics.

The retrospective series will feature Portillo's most representative work such as After the Earthquake, her first film, made with Nina Serrano in 1979, a short about the experiences of a young Nicaraguan woman immigrant to the United States; Las Madres: The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (1985), an Academy Award–nominated documentary about the courageous Argentinean mothers’ movement that spoke out for that country's desaparecidos; and Señorita Extraviada (2001) which brought to light the brutal cases of the hundreds of kidnapped, raped and murdered young women of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.

The Houston Chronicle calls Portillo, “one of the most important filmmakers chronicling the Latino experience today,” while Variety refers to her work as “powerful…gripping…and passionate.” Her films have been widely influential for younger generations of filmmakers, particularly Latina women interested in the expression of their culture. In addition to her Academy Award® nomination, her films have also been awarded the Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize; International Documentary Association’s Distinguished Documentary Award; The Nestor Almendros Human Rights Prize; San Francisco Film Festival Golden Spire Award; and Films de Femmes, Creteil, Audience Award/Women’s Journalists’ Award.

Lourdes Portillo will be in attendance for the opening four days of the retrospective, including on Friday, June 22, for the New York premiere of Al Más Allá. She will also participate in a discussion with filmmaker and Sundance award-winner Natalia Almada after the screening of The Devil Never Sleeps on Saturday, June 23. “Lourdes Portillo: La Cineasta Inquisitiva” is presented on the occasion of the 58th Robert Flaherty Film Seminar, and in conjunction with the 40th anniversary of Women Make Movies, the nation's largest distributor of films by women and about women.

Pictures: Stills from Columbus on Trial (1992) and Corpus: A Home Movie for Selena (1999). Images courtesy Women Make Movies.

CONTACT US

MAILING ADDRESS:
CINEMA TROPICAL
611 Broadway Suite 836
New York, NY 10012

TELEPHONE:
+1 (212) 254-5474

EMAIL US

Mission

MISSION

New York-based Cinema Tropical (CT) is the leading presenter of Latin American cinema in the U.S.

Founded in 2001 with the mission of distributing, programming and promoting what was to become the biggest boom of Latin American cinema in decades, CT brought U.S. audiences some of the first screening of films such as Amores Perros and Y Tu Mamá También.

Through a diversity of programs and initiatives, CT is thriving as a dynamic and groundbreaking 501(c)(3) non-profit media arts organization experimenting in the creation of better and more effective strategies for the distribution and exhibition of foreign cinema in this country.  

---

HISTORY

Cinema Tropical –the brainchild of Carlos A Gutiérrez and Monika Wagenberg, was officially launched on February 19, 2001, with a special screening of Martín Rejtman’s Silvia Prieto at the (now-extinct) Two Boots Pioneer Theater in New York’s East Village with the attendance of the Argentine filmmaker.

Shortly after, Cinema Tropical held a special sneak preview of the Mexican film Amores Perros with director Alejandro González Iñárritu and actor Gael García Bernal in attendance followed by a reception. The organization got a start as a cineclub organizing film series with weekly screenings at the Pioneer Theater. The Cinema Tropical Series showed retrospectives on directors such as Carlos Diegues and Leonardo Favio, and in conjunction with the Guggenheim Museum organized the series “Acción! Mexican Cinema Now” which included the New York Premiere of Alfonso Cuarón’s Y Tu Mamá También.

Incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in 2002, the organization soon expanded to create a non-theatrical circuit that would also held regular screenings in 13 of the most important cinemathèques around North America including Facets Cinémathèque in Chicago, the NW Film Center in Portland and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, among others. 

It was in 2003, that Cinema Tropical launched Israel Adrián Caetano's film Bolivia as its first theatrical release at Film Forum, and to date the organization has done 16 releases, more than any other film distributor in the country.  

Since its creation over eight years ago, Cinema Tropical has produced numerous projects including “Cine Móvil,” a traveling open-air film festival; ‘David Bowie Presents 10 Latin American & Spanish Films from the Last 100 Years’ film series, in association with the H&M High Line Festival; and ‘Cinema Chile’ at the Quad Cinema, in partnership with ProChile.

In 2011 The Museum of Modern Art in New York City paid tribute to the work of the organization with the film series "In Focus: Cinema Tropical" which featured films made by some of the directors that CT has championed throughout these past years.

Today Cinema Tropical is thriving as dynamic and groundbreaking media arts organization experimenting in creating better and more effective platforms for the distribution and exhibition of foreign cinema in this country, introducing American audiences to the rich and diverse tradition of Latin American cinema, as well as advocating inside and outside the film community for a more inclusive take on world cinema.

     

    

Clockwise from top left: Cinema Tropical's Co-founding Director Carlos A. Gutiérrez with filmmakers Fernando Eimbcke (Duck Season; Lake Tahoe) and Alfonso Cuarón (Y Tu Mamá También; Children of Men); Brazilian filmmakers Fernando Meireles (City of God; The Constant Gardener) and Paulo Morelli at the NY premiere of City of Men presented as part of Cinema Tropical's "Janeiro in New York" festival; Actor Gael García Bernal and director Alejandro González Iñárritu at the NY premiere of Amores Perros in the spring of 2002; director Chico Teixera, Rachel Greenstein from Havaianas and Cinema Tropical's Mary Jane Marcasiano at a sneak preview of Teixera film Alice's House. Photos by José Luis Ramírez.

Tropical Books

Cinema Tropical Presents
THE 10 BEST LATIN AMERICAN FILMS OF THE DECADE

Cinema Tropical has partnered with Jorge Pinto Books to publish a special commemorative book on the 'The 10 Best Latin American Films of the Decade based on a survey of distinguished critics, scholars and film professionals work has been devoted to the promotion and dissemination of Latin American cinema in the United States.

The book features ten essays on the top notch film written by guest film critics and scholars. Foreword and Editor: Carlos A. Gutiérrez, Co-Founding Director, Cinema Tropical.

Contents

Foreword
"Shipreck in the Middle of the Mountain: La Ciénaga", David Oubiña
"Amores Perros", Paul Julian Smith
"Silent Light: Carlos Reygadas' Meditation on Love and Ritual", Naief Yehya
"City of God: Eight Years Later", Else R. P. Vieira
"Bus 174", Gerard Dapena
"Y Tu Mamá También", Misha MacLaird
"Whisky", Tamara Falicov
"They and the Others, in a Country Gone Mad: The Headless Woman", Josefina Sartora
"The Holy Girl",  Jerónimo Rodríguez
"Pan's Labyrinth", Howard Feinstein
Film Credits
Survey Participants

ISBN: 978-1-934978-39-9    || ISBN10: 1-934978-39-6

Retail price $14.95 plus shipping + handling

Contributors

Gerard Dapena is a scholar of Hispanic Cinemas and Visual Culture. He has published and lectured on different aspects of Spanish and Latin American film and art history and taught at a number of colleges in the U.S.

Tamara L. Falicov is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Film and Media Studies at the University of Kansas. She is a core faculty member in the Center of Latin American Studies. Professor Falicov's specialty is the study of Latin American film industries, with particular focus on the cinemas of Argentina, the Southern Cone, and Cuba. She is the author of The Cinematic Tango: Contemporary Argentine Film (London: Wallflower Press, 2007)

Howard Feinstein is a film critic for Screen, Filmmaker, and other publications. He has been programming for the Sarajevo Film Festival since 1999, and lives in New York.

Misha MacLaird is a film writer and curator from Oakland, California. Her research on Mexico’s post-1994 film industry was supported by a Fulbright-Hays award. She has recently published a book chapter on 1970s Mexican shark films and an interview on Amazonian werewolves.

David Oubiña earned his doctorate in the Arts and Humanities. He is a researcher for CONICET (the Argentine National Council of Scientific and Technical Research) and a professor at the Universidad del Cine and New York University in Buenos Aires. He is a member of the editorial board of Cahiers du cinema: España and Board of Directors of Las ranas: Arte, ensayo, traducción. He has written several books including: Estudio sobre La ciénaga, de Lucrecia Martel (Picnic, 2007), Una juguetería filosófica. Cine cronofotografía y arte digital (Manantial, 2009) and the forthcoming El silencio y sus bordes. Modos de lo extremo en cine y literatura (Fondo de cultura económica).

Jerónimo Rodríguez was born in Santiago, Chile. He is the critic-host for the film review television program, Toma Uno, on NY1 Noticias in New York City. He also has worked as a film columnist for and contributed articles to publications such as Sports Illustrated Latino, People (en Español), Capital Magazine, and El Nuevo Canon. Additionally, he served as script advisor on the feature film Huacho, which was selected for Cannes Critics’ Week and the Toronto International Film Festival, and won the Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Award. Jerónimo moved to the U.S. after graduating from law school.

Josefina Sartora is a Literature professor from Argentina, focusing her studies on myths, symbols and archetypes in the image, and on documentary film. She also studies the connection between art and philosophy. Her works about these subjects have appeared in several publications in Argentina and France. Her latest book – about Argentine documentaries and co-edited with Silvina Rival – is Imágenes de lo real. She contributes to Le Monde Diplomatique (Argentine edition) on cinema and cultural studies, and is a regular critic at www.otroscines.com and Agenda del Sur.

Paul Julian Smith is Distinguished Professor in the Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Program at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He is the author of fifteen books including: Amores Perros (BFI 2003), Desire Unlimited: The Cinema of Pedro Almodóvar (Verso, 2001) and Spanish Screen Fiction: Between Cinema and Television (Liverpool UP, 2009). He is a regular contributor to Sight & Sound and Film Quarterly.

Else R. P. Vieira has written and taught on a broad range of subjects including the politicization of the expression of the dispossessed and issues of gender and sexuality. Here last published book was City of God in Several Voices: Brazilian Social Cinema as Action (2005) and she is currently working on a project entitled Screening Exclusion: Brazilian and Argentine Documentary Film-Making, which compares the 21st century boom of the documentary in these two nations.

Naief Yehya is an industrial engineer, journalist, writer and cultural critic. His work deals mainly with the impact of technology, mass media, propaganda and pornography in culture and society. His most recent book is Technoculture (Tusquets, 2008).

PASTORELA Named Best Film at Ariel Awards, Mexico's National Film Prize

 
The film Pastorela by Emilio Portes was the winner of the top categories at the 54th annual edition of the Ariel Awards, Mexico's most important film prize, having won the prizes for Best Film and Best Director. Additionally, the Christmas comedy film starring Joaquín Cossío, Ana Serradilla and Lalo España, won the prizes for Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup and Best Visual Effects.

Yet the greatest number of awards went to Everardo Gout's Días de gracia which won eight, including Best Actor for Tenoch Huerta and Best First Film. The award for Best Documentary was for Tatiana Huezo's El lugar más pequeño / The Tiniest Place and the award for Best Actress was for Magda Vizcaíno for her leading role in Marcelino Islas Hernández's Martha.

Pastorela was released in the U.S. by Pantelion Films last December. The Ariel Awards were announced at a ceremony took place tonight at the Fine Arts Palace in Mexico City –oddly enough it wasn't broadcasted live nor webcasted.