February 1-3, 2019
Museum of the Moving Image
Cinema Tropical, in partnership with Museum of the Moving Image, present the 2019 edition of the Cinema Tropical Festival celebrating the year's best Latin American films. The festival will feature the winners of the 9th annual Cinema Tropical Awards, which represent the artistic excellence of contemporary Latin American cinema. The Festival offers a platform for local audiences to discover the exciting world of film coming from the region.
All screenings at Museum of the Moving Image
36-01 35 Avenue, Astoria, NY
(718) 777-6888 / www.movingimage.us
THE SENTENCE
(Rudy Valdez, USA, 2018, 85 min. In English) — Winner, Best U.S. Latino Film
Q&A with the filmmaker
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A lyrical, intimate story documented over ten years, The Sentence explores the devastating consequences of mass incarceration and mandatory minimum drug sentencing. Filmmaker Rudy Valdez tells the story of his older sister, Cindy Shank, a mother of three young children serving a fifteen-year sentence in federal prison for her tangential involvement in a Michigan drug ring years before. The Sentence follows Cindy’s struggles to be present in her children's lives from behind bars and her daughters' experiences growing up without their mother at home, while her husband, parents, and siblings fight for her release before the last months of the Obama administration's Clemency Project.
Friday, February 1, 7pm
BARONESA
(Juliana Antunes, Brazil, 2017, 71 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles) — Winner, Best Documentary
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Friends Leidiane and Andreia live on the outskirts of Vila Mariquinha - a peripheral neighborhood of the interior Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte. Leid waits with her children for her husband to return from prison. Andreia wants to move. Meanwhile, the friends try to steer clear of an impending drug war between traffickers in the region. Juliana Antunes’s debut feature Baronesa, winner of the Audience Prize at the 2017 FIDMarseille Festival, follows these two women as their conversations penetrate the facts of life: family drugs, sex, death. With its predominantly female crew and nonprofessional cast, Baronesa confirms Antunes' place as a powerful new voice in Brazilian cinema.
Saturday, February 2, 4:30pm
306 HOLLYWOOD
(Elan and Jonathan Bogarín, USA, 2018, 94 min. In English) — Special Mention, Best U.S. Latino Film
Q&A with the filmmakers
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At 306 Hollywood Avenue in Newark, former dress designer Annette Ontell lived for 71 years in a nondescript white house. After her death in 2011, her grandchildren Elan and Jonathan were left with her belongings, from toothbrushes to tax documents. Instead of throwing away this lifetime of detritus, Venezuelan-American filmmakers Elan and Jonathan began a meticulous process of cataloguing and archiving everything Annette left behind. The result is this magical documentary, an inspiring look at the extraordinary stories and histories hidden away in the everyday.
Saturday, February 2, 6:30pm
ZAMA
( Lucrecia Martel, Argentina/Brazil/Spain/France/Netherlands/Mexico/Portugal/USA, 2017, 115 mins. In Spanish with English subtitles) — Winner, Best Film
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In a remote South American colony in the late eighteenth century, officer Zama of the Spanish crown waits in vain for a transfer to a more prestigious location. He suffers small humiliations and petty politicking as he increasingly succumbs to lust and paranoia, progressively losing hope as well as his mind. The latest film from Lucretia Martel (The Headless Woman)—one of the world's greatest living directors—is a tonally and stylistically singular work, adapting Antonio di Benedetto’s 1956 classic of Argentinean literature into a mysterious, modern masterpiece in its own right.
Sunday, February 3, 2pm
GOOD MANNERS
(As Boas Maneiras, Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra, Brazil, 2017, 135 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles) — Winner, Best Director
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Filmmakers Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra’s second collaboration (after the acclaimed Hard Labor) deftly integrates art-house and genre cinema to create a thrilling and dark gothic fable with sharp social commentary. Set in São Paulo, the film follows Clara, a lonely nurse from the outskirts of the city who is hired by mysterious and wealthy Ana to be the nanny of her soon to be born child. Against all odds, the two women develop a strong bond. But a fateful night marked by a full moon changes their plans. With powerful visuals and an impeccable cinematography (by Zama’s Rui Poças), Good Manners is Disney meets Jacques Tourneur. The film becomes an unexpected and wild werewolf movie unlike any other, and a poignant social and racial allegory on modern-day Brazilian society.
Sunday, February 3, 4:30pm
