LACMA to Fête Gabriel Figueroa

LACMA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, has announced its upcoming presentation of film programs that further explore the 50-year career of revered Mexican cinematographer, Gabriel Figueroa. His trajectory is on detail through the exhibition, Under the Mexican Sky: Gabriel Figueroa through film clips, paintings, photographs, posters and documents, many from Figueroa's archive.

The Golden Age of Mexican Cinema is a complimentary series which focuses on Figueroa's hand in shaping what he referred to as una imágen méxican, or a Mexican image and what is largely considered an essential part of Mexican visual identity and culture.

Described as a master of light and contrast and influences based on friendships with muralists such as José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, an apprenticeship with cinematographer Gregg Toland, are all vividly stylized and encompassed through each film in this series. Co-presented with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, many of the films included are from key collaborations with director Emilio Fernández and which often cemented the careers of Mexican icons.

The program will show the 1944 film María Candelaria (pictured right),which introduced the Golden Age of Mexican cinema to the world and won two prizes at the Cannes Film Festival. It will also present Enamorada, also directed once again by Emilio Fernández, stars María Félix as Peñafiel who is pursued by charmer General Reyes, played by Pedro Armendáriz. Further collaborations with Fernández include La perla / The Pearl adapted with author John Steinbeck's blessing an participation, Sálon México, their first collaborationamong others.

Upcoming film series will focus on Figueroa's work with surrealist Luis Buñuel, working in Hollywood with directors such as John Ford and John Huston, and contemporary filmmakers who have been influenced by his work.

The film series takes place at LACMA from September 20th through October 11th. The exhibition will be held from September 22 through February 2nd, 2014.

Derbez Aims to Conquer U.S. Box Office

Popular Mexican comedian Eugenio Derbez is making his directorial debut with the feature film Instructions Not Included / No se aceptan devoluciones (pictured), which opens tomorrow, Friday, August 30, nationwide. The film, also written and produced by Derbez is being released in the U.S. by Pantelion Films -a joint venture between Lionsgate and Televisa. Instructions Not Included will be released in over 350 theaters across the country, making it the Latino studio's largest release.

Derbez stars as the Valentin, a playboy living the high life in Acapulco. After a one night stand with an American named Julie, she ends up pregnant. Not ready for motherhood, she leave the child, a blond, blue-eyed daughter named Maggie. After a period of adjustment, he learns how to be a good father, becoming a Hollywood stuntman and spoiling the little girl.

Watch the trailer:

Cuarón, Lelio, Maillé, and Fuguet to Telluride

Telluride Film Festival, known for its eclectic and often last minute announcements has scheduled its lineup for this year's 40th anniversary edition. In commemoration of 40 years, the usual four day festival has added an additional day. Once again, a mix of  emerging filmmakers and auteurs from around the world, the festival will feature some Latin American talent

Among 59 feature and shorts, Sebastián Lelio's acclaimed Chilean film Gloria, in which the title character learns to come to terms with aging, will be presented in the festival's main slate. The other Latin American representation in the festival's main section is Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity. Starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts detached from their space shuttle by a missions disaster.

The Festival also invites six guest directors to return with new programs, including author B. Ruby Rich presenting De cierta manera / One Way of Another, directed by Cuban director Sara Gómez, which mixes documentary-style footage with a fictional story that looks at the poor neighborhoods of Havana shortly after the Cuban Revolution of 1959.

Backlot, Telluride's intimate screening room featuring behind-the-scenes movies and portraits of artists, musicians and filmmakers will be screening the Chilean film Locations: Looking for Rusty James directed by Alberto Fuguet, a personal documentary about the huge impact of the film “Rumble Fish” on a whole generation of filmmakers from the Southern Cone of Latin America.

Frank Pavich's Jodorowsky's Dune chronicles legendary Chilean director's attempt to adapt and film Frank Herbert's science fiction novel Dune in the mid-1970s. The Mexican film, Miradas múltiples: La máquina loca / Multiple Visions, The Crazy Machine (pictured right) directed by Emilio Maille documents the work of one of the keenest eyes in film history, Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa, who’s responsible for many of the lasting images from Mexico’s golden age of cinema.

The Telluride Film Festival will be held From August 29 through September 2nd in Telluride, Colorado.

GenMex Part II: Recent Films from Mexico

 

August 30 - September 12, 2013

Based on the success of the 2011 fall series GenMex: Recent Films from Mexico, Anthology Film Archives is partnering once again with Cinema Tropical and the Mexican Cultural Institute to present a series featuring some of the most inventive and cutting-edge filmmakers working in Mexico today.

Over the past decade, an emerging generation of filmmakers in the country has produced an impressive and internationally acclaimed body of work. Some of these filmmakers, such as Matías Meyer, Eugenio Polgovksy, Pedro González-Rubio, and Yulene Olaizola, have been able to create substantial bodies of work in a short time, each of them producing three, four, or, in the case of the exceedingly prolific Nicolás Pereda, seven feature films. Their ranks have been joined by others who have burst onto the scene more recently, with debut features and sophomore productions promising great things – including Kyzza Terrazas, Michel Lipkes, Sebastián Hofmann, Natalia Beristáin, and Michel Franco, among others.

GenMex Part II will showcase some of the most exciting films made in Mexico since the first installment of the series, five of them New York premieres, proving that this new wave of Mexican cinema is anything but a fleeting phenomenon. The program includes the New York premiere of Michel Franco’s Después de Lucía / After Lucía, winner of the top prize at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, the Sundance favorite Halley by Sebastián Hofmann, and a special sneak preview of Natalia Beristain’s No quiero dormir sola / She Doesn’t Want to Sleep Alone, winner of the prize for Best Film at the Morelia Film Festival.

As part of the series, Anthology Film Archives will also be hosting the U.S. theatrical premiere run of Matías Meyer’s minimalist epic The Last Christeros / Los últimos Cristeros, playing August 30 – September 5.

GenMex Part II is presented by Anthology Film Archives, Cinema Tropical, and the Mexican Cultural Institute of New York. Additional support provided by National Endowment for the Arts - Art Works, the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, New York City's Department of Cultural Affairs, and The Rolex Institute.

Special thanks to all the filmmakers, and to Jaime Jaimes and Víctor Manuel Juárez (Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores), Estrella Araiza (Vendocine); Sandro Fiorin & Alex García (FiGa Films); Sandra Gómez & Jessy Vega (Interior XIII); Shinji Kitagawa (Nara International Film Festival); Aida LiPera & Lita Robinson (Visit Films); David Pike (BrinkVision); Juan Pablo Polo (Axolote Distribución); Franka Schwabe (Bac Films); and Jacqueline Jimenez (Pantelion Films).

All films at:
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Avenue at 2nd Street, New York City
(212) 505-5181 / www.anthologyfilmarchives.org

              

With the support of The Rolex Institute

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COMPLETE SCHEDULE

GREATEST HITS / LOS MEJORES TEMAS
A film by Nicolás Pereda (Mexico/Canada/Netherlands, 2012, 103 min., 35mm.)
“A restless formalist and one of the most inventive practitioners of the hybrid film, the prolific Pereda casts two of his regular collaborators, Gabino Rodríguez and Teresa Sánchez, as son and mother in a domestic drama about a returning prodigal father. But the reality of the film soon starts to slip. An actor is replaced; scenes are repeated with slight variations; worlds collide as actors interact with fictional characters. Both playful and radical, Greatest Hits is one of Pereda’s most emotionally resonant films, and also, as the title suggests, a culminating work.” –First Look, Museum of the Moving Image
Friday, September 6 at 6:45pm; Sunday, September 8 at 9pm; and Monday, September 9 at 8:45pm.

New York Premiere!
AFTER LUCÍA / DESPUÉS DE LUCÍA
A film by Michel Franco (Mexico, 2012, 102 min., 35mm.)
Winner of the top prize at the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival, the sophomore feature film by Franco, “one of the finest and most imaginative young directors on the scene” (Howard Feinstein, Screen Daily), is an intense and shocking exploration of the violent effects of bullying. The film tells the story of Alejandra, who has just moved with her depressed father to Mexico City after her mother has passed away. As she starts classes in a new school, she becomes the target of escalating torment by bullies. Their torments grow in intensity and cruelty, wearing down the weary Alejandra’s resistance.
Friday, September 6 at 9:15pm; and Tuesday, September 10 at 7pm.

New York Premiere!
MITOTE / MEXICAN RITUAL
A film by Eugenio Polgovsky (Mexico, 2012, 53 min., digital video)
A shaman’s mystical invocations, a protest of furious electricians on hunger strike, and a euphoric soccer crowd collide in the Zócalo of Mexico City, the country’s central square and ancient ceremonial heart of the Aztec empire. Mitote (Nahuatl for chaos or celebration) transforms the plaza into a wrestling ring, where national commemorations, postmodern rituals, and the remains of pre-Hispanic culture clash. Polgovsky’s follow up to his acclaimed documentary film The Inheritors is an intricate portrait of the different layers that coexist – sometimes in conflict – in Mexican culture.

&
New York Premiere!
FOGO
A film by Yulene Olaizola (Mexico/Canada, 2012, 61 min., digital video. In English)
The deterioration of a small community in Fogo Island, off the coast of Canada, is forcing its inhabitants to leave and resettle. Places once occupied by humans are now becoming part of the tundra landscape. In spite of a condemned future, there are some residents who decide to remain, holding on to their memories and grieving for the past, when life in Fogo was different. Olaizola’s third feature film, a minimalist Mexican-Canadian drama, follows in the footsteps of her previous film Artificial Paradises, pushing the boundaries between fiction and documentary film.
Saturday, September 7 at 4:45pm; and Wednesday, September 11 at 9pm.

INORI
A film by Pedro González-Rubio (Japan, 2012, 72 min., digital video. In Japanese with English subtitles)
“Epic. […] González-Rubio’s long, contemplative takes feel like an osmotic experience.” –G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle
Winner of the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival, the third feature film by acclaimed director González-Rubio (Alamar) is a stunning and poetic documentary shot in a tiny mountain community in Japan, made at the invitation of Japanese director Naomi Kawase and the Nara Film Festival. Blending documentary and narrative, Inori (Japanese for ‘prayer’) depicts the lives of the aging population of the isolated village. As the younger generations have left to look for work elsewhere, the remaining elderly inhabitants perform their everyday routine with stoicism and dignity.
Saturday, September 7 at 7:15pm; and Thursday, September 12 at 9pm.

MALAVENTURA
A film by Michel Lipkes (Mexico, 2011, 67 min., 35mm.)
“Beautiful. […] Lipkes proves in this opera prima that he is a talent to watch.” –Howard Feinstein, Screen Daily
Lipkes’s slow-burning film follows a nameless elderly man (played by non-actor Issac López) on his last day of life in the seedy streets of downtown Mexico City. Beset by memories, he roams through his past while everyday life slips by him. “Rendered with intensity and rigor” (Robert Koehler, Variety), Malaventura marks the auspicious and dignified filmmaking debut of film critic and programmer Lipkes.
Saturday, September 7 at 9pm; and Monday, September 9 at 7pm.

MACHETE LANGUAGE / EL LENGUAJE DE LOS MACHETES
A film by Kyzza Terrazas (Mexico, 2011, 84 min., digital video)
Ray (Andrés Almeida), a revolutionary activist, and Ramona (real-life singer Jessy Bulbo), a rebellious punk rock girl, are a young couple who hate inequality and social injustice in their country, and together try to advocate for a better world. Pushed over the edge by the violent repression in Salvador Atenco, they feel increasingly drawn to commit a terrorist act in the name of their political beliefs and their love. Terrazas’s poignant directorial debut is a frenetic love story in a self-destructive political activist context, set to the rhythm of punk rock.
Sunday, September 8 at 5pm; and Thursday, September 12 at 7pm.

New York Premiere!
HALLEY
A film by Sebastián Hofmann (Mexico, 2012, 84 min., digital video)
Co-presented by Latin Horror
"Beto, a security guard in a Mexico City gym, quietly observes the healthy bodies of the muscle-bound patrons, which contrast sharply with his own physical deterioration. Afflicted with a strange illness, Beto surrenders to his condition and holes up in his apartment, injecting himself with embalming fluid to stem his increasing decay. Beto’s melancholy grows as he realizes – in the words of an affable morgue attendant – that ‘the diseased become the disease.’ Through the friendly advances of the gym’s female owner, Beto dances with the illusory promise of feeling alive again. Hofmann’s increasingly surrealistic feature debut subverts genre conventions and audience expectations, treating its living-dead protagonist with sensitivity and compassion." –Sundance Film Festival
Sunday, September 8 at 7pm; and Tuesday, September 10 at 9:15pm.

Special Sneak-Preview Screening!
SHE DOESN’T WANT TO SLEEP ALONE / NO QUIERO DORMIR SOLA
A film by Natalia Beristain (Mexico, 2012, 82 min., digital video)
Amanda is 33 years old and suffers from a condition: she cannot sleep alone. Her dull life is suddenly altered when she is forced to take care of her old alcoholic grandmother, Dolores (played by veteran actress Adriana Roel), a retired actress who lives on her past glories. Largely based on the filmmaker’s relationship to her grandmother, Beristain’s promising feature film, which had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, was the winner of the prize for Best Film at the 2012 Morelia Film Festival.
Wednesday, September 11 at 7pm.

New York Theatrical Premiere Run!
THE LAST CHRISTEROS / LOS ÚLTIMOS CRISTEROS
A film by Matías Meyer (Mexico/Netherlands, 2011, 90 min., 35mm.)
Matías Meyer’s The Last Christeros is a highly unusual historical film that takes a meditative, nearly non-narrative approach to portraying the experiences of those who continued to resist the Mexican government’s anti-Christian (especially anti-Roman Catholic) persecution, even following the official end of the Cristero War in 1929. Devoted to the cause, despite their increasing desperation and fatigue, and their yearning to rejoin their families, this band of rebels – whose genuine religious faith and spiritual innocence is apparent despite their paradoxical embrace of armed struggle – trudges exhaustedly through the hills and mountains of rural Mexico, experiencing moments of grace and beauty amid the violence and suffering. This third feature by Meyer (following Wadley and The Cramp) decisively establishes him as one of the most gifted of young Mexican filmmakers, and represents a striking combination of minimalist cinema and historical depiction. Eschewing a narrative chronicle of the War’s events, Meyer instead puts us in his weary fighters’ shoes, and emphasizes the quiet, strangely tranquil moments between battles.
Friday, August 30 through Thursday, September 5, nightly at 7pm and 9pm, additional screenings on 8/31 and 9/1 at 5pm.

Unless otherwise noted, all films are in Spanish with English subtitles.

Find the Five Similarities Between EL ESTUDIANTE and THE NEWSROOM

By Sergio C. Muñoz

Ever since the international debut of the Argentinean film El Estudiante / The Student at the Locarno Film Festival back in the summer of 2011, its director Santiago Mitre has been compared to American screenwriter and producer Aaron Sorkin, creator of hit shows and films such as The West Wing, The Social Network and The Newsroom. [Click here to read Eric Kohn's review indieWIRE: "The Student" Announces Santiago Mitre as a South American Aaron Sorkin].

Coinciding with the one-week run of the Argentinean film at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City (August 22 – 28), TropicalFRONT's collaborator Sergio Muñoz compares El Estudiante and The Newsroom here.

El Estudiante is set in Argentina and it features a cast of young students who are engaging in political protest to take back control of the University of Buenos Aires. The Newsroom is set in New York City and it features a cast of young "journalists" who are engaging in political protest to take back control of the newsroom in America.

Five similarities between El Estudiante and The Newsroom:

1. Sam Waterston plays the wise executive producer who has known and seen it all in The Newsroom. He attempts to control the egos of the old hands played by Jeff Daniels and Jane Fonda while at the same time nurturing the young ones like Emily Mortimer and Olivia Munn. Ricardo Felix plays the wise politician who has known and seen it all in El Estudiante. He attempts to control the maneuvers of the old guard off-camera while at the same time corralling the energy of the new guard on-camera.

2. Emily Mortimer as MacKenzie plays a strong female lead with the intellectual capacity to lead The Newsroom. Romina Paula as Paula plays a strong female lead with the intellectual capacity to lead both the student movement and the protagonist in El Estudiante.

3. Thomas Sadoski, in the role of Don Keefer in The Newsroom, manages to woo co-workers at an alarming rate using no charm whatsoever. Esteban Lamothe, in the role of Roque Espinoza in El Estudiante, manages to woo co-workers at an alarming rate using no charm whatsoever.

4. All of the characters in both the The Newsroom and El Estudiante speak like they are both attempting to race and kill each other with their intellectual arguments.

5. The subject matter: They both tie together an entertaining education in politics and civics that repel enormous portions of the voting population but attract tiny important populations of the established one percent and those striving to be in the one percent. This phenomenon is most clear in Washington, DC, where the one percent politicians are treated in the same celebrity way that the one percent Hollywood actors are treated in Los Angeles. The universe seems to revolve around these characters because capital seems to revolve around these characters and thus power revolves around these characters.

El Estudiante focuses on local power with the politics enveloping a university system. On The Newsroom, the focus goes wherever imperial America decides to go; Egypt; Syria; Uganda; etc... But the biggest difference between The Newsroom and El Estudiante is the most complicated: If Santiago Mitre had the resources available to Aaron Sorkin, the Argentinean film would both be more developed and in-turn capable of attracting a larger audience. But it seems the more these projects get developed, the more they lose their street credibility which is the strength of El Estudiante and the weakness of The Newsroom.   

Watch the trailer of El Estudiante:

Watch a clip of The Newsroom:

Anthology to Present Cutting-Edge Mexican Cinema in NYC

Based on the success of the 2011 fall series GenMex: Recent Films from Mexico, Anthology Film Archives is partnering once again with Cinema Tropical and the Mexican Cultural Institute to present 'GenMex Part II: Recent Films from Mexico' a film series that will take place September 6 – 12 presenting some of the most inventive and cutting-edge filmmakers working in Mexico today, and featuring five New York premieres.

'GenMex Part II' will showcase some of the most exciting films made in Mexico since the first installment of the series which was presented in the fall of 2011, proving that this new wave of Mexican cinema is anything but a fleeting phenomenon. The program includes the New York premiere of Michel Franco’s Después de Lucía / After Lucía (pictured top left), winner of the top prize at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, the Sundance favorite Halley (pictured right) by Sebastián Hofmann, and a special sneak preview of Natalia Beristain’s No quiero dormir sola / She Doesn’t Want to Sleep Alone, winner of the prize for Best Film at the Morelia Film Festival.

The series will also present the New York premiere of the documentary film Mitote by Eugenio Polgovsky and Fogo by Yulene Olaizola, as well as Nicolás Pereda's Los mejores temas / Greatest Hits, Pedro González-Rubio's Inori, Michel Lipkes' Malaventura and Kyzza Terrazas' El lenguaje de los machetes / Machete Language.

As part of 'GenMex Part II', Anthology Film Archives will also be hosting the U.S. theatrical premiere run of Matías Meyer’s minimalist epic The Last Christeros / Los últimos Cristeros, playing August 30 – September 5.

“We’re very excited to be partnering again with Anthology Film Archives and the Mexican Cultural Institute in bringing to New York audiences some of the best Mexican films of the last couple of years”, says Carlos A. Gutiérrez, Director of Cinema Tropical, and programmer of the film series, “these films illustrate the greatness and diversity of Mexican cinema and showcase some of the country’s most promising talents.”