Museum of the Moving Image and Cinema Tropical join forces for an exciting new series offering sneak previews of upcoming Latin American and U.S. Latinx film releases. “Las Premieres” will offer New York audiences the opportunity to see vital new films from some of the most talented artists from the region—before they are available in theaters or on streamers.
All screenings at:
Museum of the Moving Image
36-01 35 Avenue, Astoria, NY 11106
Advance tickets are available at www.movingimage.us
Upcoming Screenings:
JESÚS LÓPEZ
(Maximiliano Schonfeld, Argentina/France, 2021, 86 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
When promising young race-car driver Jesús López dies in a motorcycle accident, residents of his Argentine small town are deeply shaken. His teenage cousin Abel is gradually tempted to take Jesús’s place with family and friends, until Abel lets himself be possessed by Jesús’s spirit. Winner of the Cinema Tropical Award for Best Director and the Best Latin American Film Award at the Mar del Plata Film Festival, Jesús López, the fourth feature from Maximiliano Schonfeld, is a captivating and elegantly directed mystical tale about community grief and emancipation.
Past Screenings:
NARCISSUS OFF DUTY / NARCISO EM FÉRIAS
(Ricardo Calil and Renato Terra, Brazil, 2020, 84 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
Co-presented with Brasil SummerFest
Acclaimed at film festivals from Venice to IDFA to Sheffield, Narcissus Off Duty is a gripping documentary about Grammy-winning Brazilian singer Caetano Veloso and his incarceration at the hands of his country’s dictatorship. One December morning in 1968, the police knocked on Veloso’s door, arrested him without charge, and took him to a converted army barracks for allegedly singing the National Anthem to the melody of his popular song “Tropicalia.” What he thought would be one night in jail lasted nearly two months. More than 50 years later, Veloso shares this dark chapter of his life, captured in uninterrupted direct address. Produced by renowned filmmaker Walter Salles (Central Station, The Motorcycle Diaries), Narcissus Off Duty gives Veloso the space to narrate his own story.
THE PADILLA AFFAIR / EL CASO PADILLA
(Pavel Giroud, Spain/Cuba, 2022, 78 min. In Spanish, English, and French, with English subtitles)
Spring 1971, Havana: The poet Heberto Padilla is released from jail and appears at a meeting of the Cuban Writers’ Guild. In an attempt at “heartfelt self-criticism,” he proceeds to incriminate himself, declaring his status as a counterrevolutionary agent and identifying many of his attending colleagues, including his wife, as the same. A month before, Padilla had been accused of attacking the security of the Cuban state, his arrest mobilizing the intelligentsia, who addressed a letter to Fidel Castro demanding Padilla’s release, claiming his only sin was dissent and criticism through his poetry. The writer’s filmed mea culpa, presented for the first time, is the centerpiece of a story punctuated by interventions from Gabriel García Márquez, Julio Cortázar, Mario Vargas Llosa, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jorge Edwards, Carlos Fuentes, and Fidel Castro.
Acclaimed at the Telluride, San Sebastian and Miami Film festivals, and recent winner of the Platino Award for Best Ibero-American Documentary of the Year, The Padilla Affair is an astonishing film that explores aspects of Cuba’s past that still reverberate, including the struggle for freedom of expression.
THE COW WHO SANG A SONG INTO THE FUTURE / LA VACA QUE CANTÓ UNA CANCIÓN HACIA EL FUTURO
(Francisca Alegría, Chile. 2022, 93 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
With Mia Maestro, Leonor Varela, Enzo Ferrada Rosati, Benjamin Soto, and Alfredo Castro.
Francisca Alegría’s poignant and stunning debut feature begins in a river in the south of Chile where fish are dying due to pollution from a nearby factory. Amid their floating bodies, long-deceased Magdalena bubbles up to the surface gasping for air, bringing with her old wounds and a wave of family secrets. This shocking return sends her widowed husband into turmoil and prompts their daughter Cecilia to return home to the family’s dairy farm with her children. A lyrical rumination on family, nature, renewal, and resurrection, The Cow Who Sang a Song into the Future is an ambitious proposal for acceptance and healing, suggesting that the dead return when they are most needed.
ARGENTINA, 1985
A film by Santiago Mitre
(Argentina, 2022, 140 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
With Ricardo Darín, Peter Lanzani, Alejandra Flechner, Santiago Armas, Laura Paredes, Carlos Portaluppi.
Nominated for Best International Feature at the 2023 Oscars, Argentina, 1985 is inspired by the true story of public prosecutors Julio Strassera and Luis Moreno Ocampo, who dared to investigate and prosecute Argentina’s bloodiest military dictatorship. Undeterred by the military’s still considerable influence within their fragile new democracy, Strassera and Moreno Ocampo assembled a young legal team of unlikely heroes for their David-vs-Goliath battle. Under constant threat to themselves and their families, they raced against time to bring justice to the victims of the military junta. Mitre’s film expertly balances emotional historical drama with moments of humor to create a dazzling film about fighting back against corruption and evil.
THE SILENCE OF THE MOLE / EL SILENCIO DEL TOPO
A film by Anaïs Taracena
(Guatemala. 2021, 91 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Guatemala’s Official Oscar Submission for Best International Feature Film
Anaïs Taracena’s poignant debut feature unspools as a political thriller that tells the story of Elías Barahona, a journalist who, during the 1970s, infiltrated the most repressive government in the history of Guatemala. Dubbing himself “the mole,” he lived life undercover, courageously passing information to the resistance. This year’s Guatemalan Oscar entry for Best International Feature Film is a potent documentary that uncovers the truths behind one of the most violent periods in the Central American country’s history. Winner of numerous awards at various film festivals, including the Special Jury Prize at Jeonju and the Tim Hetherington Award at Sheffield.
Sunday, December 18, 3pm
WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND
A film by Iliana Sosa
(USA, 2021, 71 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Q&A with director
Co-presented by Mexico Now Festival
Sosa creates an intimate, lovingly patient portrait of her 89-year-old grandfather Julián, from his final, long, solo bus ride to visit his daughters in El Paso, Texas, to his efforts to build a second house on his property in Mexico. Intending one house for his blind son and the other for those he can no longer travel to visit, he prepares fastidiously for a future he may not share with them, and reflects poetically on the past that led to this present. Sosa’s film is a marvel of presence, filled with gorgeously attentive images and casually revelatory moments born of patience and loving complicity.
Sunday, November 27, 6pm
LET IT BE LAW / QUE SEA LEY
A film by Juan Solanas
(France/Argentina/Uruguay, 2019, 86 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
In Argentina, a woman dies every week as the result of an illegal abortion. In 2018, for the seventh time, a motion supporting legal, secure, and free abortion was presented to the National Congress. The project provoked a fierce debate, revealing a society divided more than ever between the pro-life and freedom to choose positions. Through an assemblage of passionate testimonies, Let It Be Law documents the determination of women fighting bravely to secure the right to physical self-determination, and bears witness to their massive mobilization in the streets of Buenos Aires. Juan Solanas’s powerful, inspiring, and necessary documentary, which had its world premiere as an official selection of the Cannes Film Festival, reveals the urgent and vital struggle for the recognition of women’s rights.
Sunday, October 23, 3pm
THE BAT WOMAN / LA MUJER MURCIÉLAGO
A film by René Cardona
(Mexico, 1968, 80 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
With Maura Monti, Roberto Cañedo, Héctor Godoy, David Silva, Crox Alvarado, and Armando Silvestre
*Q&A with Viviana García Besné, the archivist responsible for this new restoration
Co-presented with the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University and the Mexican Studies Institute at The City University of New York.
The Batwoman is a fascinating and little known entry in the Batman superhero canon. Taking advantage of Batman’s increased popularity, director René Cardona, known later for his luchador adventures, aimed to showcase the talents of actress Maura Monti by splicing elements of “Batmania” with Mexico’s popular lucha libre style. Dressed in cape, cowl, boots, and bikini, Maura takes on the lead role of Batwoman, called upon to investigate an evil, whacked-out scientist who is capturing wrestlers for diabolical experiments. New digital restoration!
Sunday, Jul 31, 5pm
EDUARDO AND MÔNICA / EDUARDO E MÔNICA
A film by René Sampaio
(Brazil. 2020, 114 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
With Alice Braga and Gabriel Leone
Co-presented with Brasil Summerfest, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University, and the Mexican Studies Institute at the City University of New York.
Inspired by the characters Eduardo and Mônica, popularized by the hit song composed by Brazilian rock legend Renato Russo, Sampaio’s feature is a timeless and irresistible romantic comedy set in Brasilia in the mid-1980s. Braga (Queen of the South, City of God) and Leone star as the unlikely couple, a bohemian medical student and a goofy soap opera-loving high schooler, who must overcome seemingly unbridgeable differences for their love to survive.
Sunday, July 17, 4pm
SANTO VS. EVIL BRAIN / SANTO CONTRA CEREBRO DEL MAL
A film by Joselito Rodríguez
(Mexico. 1961, 70 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
With Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta “El Santo,” Joaquín Cordero, Norma Suárez, Enrique J. Zambrano, Alberto Inzúa, Fernando Osés.
Co-presented with the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University and the Mexican Studies Institute at the City University of New York.
Shot in Cuba in 1958—shortly before Fidel Castro entered Havana and the filmmakers were forced to flee prematurely (with the unprocessed 35mm negative smuggled inside a coffin)—Santo vs. the Evil Brain marks the cinematic debut of El Santo (Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta), the most famous and iconic of all Mexican luchadores. The silver-masked hero foils the plot of a mad scientist, who aims to create a zombie army by zapping his innocent victims with electric shocks. Santo vs. the Evil Brain sparked a series of 52 films in which El Santo fights supernatural creatures, evil scientists, and various criminals. New digital restoration!
Sunday, June 26, 5:30pm
WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND
A film by Iliana Sosa
(USA, 2021, 71 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
*Q&A with director Iliana Sosa
An intimate, lovingly patient portrait of the director’s 89-year-old grandfather Julián, from his final, long, solo bus ride to visit his daughters in El Paso, Texas, to his efforts to build a second house for his blind son on his property in Mexico.
Sunday, March 20, 3pm
PLAZA CATEDRAL
A film by Abner Benaim
(Panama/Mexico/Colombia, 2021, 94 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
With Ilse Salas, Fernando Xavier De Casta, Manolo Cardona
Shortlisted for the Oscars in the International Feature category, the second fiction film by Panamanian director Abner Benaim (Invasion, Ruben Blades Is Not My Name) stars Mexican actress Ilse Salas (Güeros, The Good Girls) as Alicia, a woman whose seemingly perfect life was turned upside-down by the sudden death of her six-year-old son. Alicia’s grief is plagued by guilt, which has made her disassociate from society, from married life, and from herself. Now she lives in the Old Quarter of Panama City, a rich colonial enclave surrounded by the city’s poorest neighborhoods. There she meets Chief (Fernando Xavier De Casta), a street-smart 13-year-old who takes care of cars in front of her apartment and insists on getting paid for his job. Alicia keeps a safe distance from him, until one night Chief arrives at Alicia’s apartment bleeding from a gunshot wound and begs her to let him inside. Winner of the Best Actor and Best Actress Awards at the Guadalajara Film Festival, Plaza Catedral questions how far each of us would go to help a stranger.
In a heartbreaking turn that substantiates the reality of gun violence addressed on screen, the film’s young protagonist was shot to death just months before the release of the film. “Reality intruded upon the film in the most tragic way,” said Benaim. “Fernando’s untimely death is harrowingly symbolic of a fractured society driven by violence and has become an inexorable part of Plaza Catedral‘s message.”
Sunday, January 23, 6:30pm
PRAYERS FOR THE STOLEN / NOCHE DE FUEGO
A film by Tatiana Huezo
(Mexico/Germany/Brazil/Qatar, 2021, 110 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
*Q&A with director Tatiana Huezo
In her devastating and accomplished fiction feature debut, Tatiana Huezo adapts Jennifer Clement’s 2014 novel, nestling a tender, personal coming-of-age story within a terrifying depiction of a world fallen into chaos. In a solitary town in the Mexican mountains, the girls wear boyish haircuts and have underground hiding places. In the impenetrable universe of these young women, magic and joy abound; meanwhile, their mothers train them to flee from the men who turn them into slaves or ghosts. The follow-up to Huezo's masterwork of immersive nonfiction Tempestad is a bravura study in perspective, showing the daily joys and sorrows of the innocent living in the looming shadows of the merciless modern-day drug cartels. A Netflix release.
Tuesday, November 30, 7pm
PRIVATE DESERT / DESERTO PARTICULAR
A film by Aly Muritiba
(Brazil/Portugal, 2021, 120 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
*Q&A with director Aly Muritiba
Brazil’s official selection for the 94th Academy Awards tells the story of 40-year-old Daniel, who has been suspended from active police work and is under internal investigation. When Sara, his internet love affair, goes missing, he drives to search for her in Bahia, in the northeast of the country. Thousands of miles from home, Daniel meets a man who can put the two in touch again, though under very specific conditions. Private Desert, the most recent film by up-and-coming director Aly Muritiba and winner of the Audience Award at Venice Days, is a gripping tale of an impossible love set under adverse conditions, and an engrossing inquiry into masculinity in contemporary Brazilian society.
Saturday, November 20, 7pm
A COP MOVIE / UNA PELÍCULA DE POLICÍAS
A film by Alonso Ruizpalacios
(Mexico, 2021, 107 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
*Q&A with director Alonso Ruizpalacios and producers Daniela Alatorre and Elena Fortes
Director Alonso Ruizpalacios takes us deep into the Mexican police force with the story of Teresa and Montoya, together known as “the love patrol.” In this thoroughly original and unpredictable documentary, Ruizpalacios plays with the boundaries of nonfiction and immerses the audience in the human experience of police work within a dysfunctional system. A Cop Movie propels the viewer into an unusual cinematic space, giving voice to one of Mexico’s—and the world’s—most controversial institutions. A Netflix release.
Friday, October 15, 7pm
SON OF MONARCHS / HIJO DE MONARCAS
A film by Alexis Gambis
(Mexico/USA, 2021, 97 min. In English and Spanish with English subtitles)
With Tenoch Huerta Mejia, Alexia Rasmussen, Lázaro Gabino Rodríguez
*Q&A with director Alexis Gambis
Winner of the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, Son of Monarchs follows a butterfly biologist (Mejia of Sin Nombre and Narcos) as he returns from New York to his hometown in the monarch butterfly forests of Michoacán, Mexico. Issues surrounding identity, migration, transfiguration, and science punctuate this poetic film. Join us for a special preview screening in advance of the film’s premiere on HBO Max.
Thursday, October 7, 7pm
