THE LAKE VAMPIRE

A film by Carl Zitelmann
(El vampiro del lago, Venezuela, 2018, In Spanish with English subtitles)

Desperate to find a subject for his next novel, Ernesto Navarro follows the tracks of a mysterious killer who decapitates his victims without leaving a trace. The investigation leads him to Jeremías Morales, a retired police detective who came across a similar case back in the 1970s. Morales was in charge of the strange case of Zacarías Ortega, a man obsessed with drinking blood and becoming immortal. Without realizing it, Navarro is dragged into a perverse game that began many years earlier and from which Morales has never been able to escape.

The Lake Vampire is a crime thriller based on the novel “A Vampire in Maracaibo” by Venezuelan author Norberto José Olivar. The story is inspired by the real life case of Zacarías Ortega, one of Venezuela’s most notorious serial killers. Ortega, a man accused of practicing witchcraft, used to drug his victims then cut their throats and drink their blood. In 1975, when Ortega was captured and detained, he confessed he committed all his crimes to honor an alleged pact with the devil, who made him immortal. True to the spirit of the book, the story of the film moves between facts and superstition.

Opens Friday, September 27
Laemmle Glendale — Buy Tickets

I’M LEAVING NOW
A film by Lindsey Cordero, Armando Croda
Written and produced by Josh Alexander
(Ya me voy, Mexico/USA, 2019, 75 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)

The film follows Felipe, an undocumented Mexican immigrant, who has reached a crossroads: after 16 years in Brooklyn, working three low-paying jobs and sending the bulk of his earnings to his wife and children in Mexico, he's decided to return home to the family he hasn't seen in almost two decades. But when he informs them of his plans, he discovers that they've squandered the money, are deeply in debt and don’t want him to return. They need him to stay in the U.S. and continue to earn.

Shot over two years in the heart of Brooklyn’s immigrant community, I’m Leaving Now is a searing and intimate portrait of one undocumented worker on the margins. The film brings a warm humanity to one of the most pressing political issues of our time, without sentimentalizing or trivializing its subject. In allowing the rhythms, emotions and sounds of Felipe’s day-to-day life to drive the story, Cordero and Croda open an impressionistic, cinematic window onto a life that might otherwise remain unseen.

Opens Friday, September 6
Maysles Cinema in New York City
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Opens, Friday, September 13
Facets Cinémathèque in Chicago
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Q&A with directors Lindsey Cordero and Armando Croda, and writer/producer Josh Alexander, following the 6:30pm shows on Friday 9/6 and Saturday 9/7. Co-presented by New Latin Wave.

THE WHISTLER
(El silbón: orígenes, Gisberg Bermúdez, Venezuela/Mexico/United States, 88 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)

Based on a popular South American folk tale, “The Whistler” refers to a phantasmagorical folk figure who wanders at night and is famed for terrorizing the drunk, the unfaithful and children, whom he’s known to feast upon. In Bermúdez’s gripping retelling of this popular Venezuelan-Colombian legend, it’s a race against the clock as a father struggles to find the origins of The Whistler’s curse in order to stop the worsening possession of his daughter by the supernatural entity.

Winner of the Best Ibero-American Feature Award at the Buenos Aires Rojo Sangre Fantastic Film Festival and Best Cinematography, Original Score and Screenplay Awards from the Caracas Cinematography Critics Circle, The Whistler is the latest addition to the exciting and emerging landscape of South American horror cinema that is leaving its mark internationally.

Opens Friday, September 6
Laemmle Glendale
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ROJO

A film by Benjamín Naishtat
(Argentina/Belgium/Brazil/Germany/France/Switzerland, 2018, 109 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)

Set in Argentina during the Dirty War, on the eve of the nation’s descent into a military dictatorship in the mid-1970s, Naishtat’s hypnotic and neo-noir drama follows Claudio, a renowned middle-aged lawyer living a seemingly picture-perfect life in a deceptively peaceful provincial city. One night, a stranger starts insulting Claudio in a restaurant for no apparent reason. The patrons support him; the stranger is humiliated and removed. Later that night, the stranger—determined to wreak a terrible vengeance— intercepts Claudio and his wife, Susana. Claudio then starts to move down a path of no return involving death, secrets, and silences—further complicated by the arrival of a Chilean private detective. 

With powerful performances from its leading cast of Darío Grandinetti (Talk to Her, Wild Tales), Andrea Frigerio, and Alfredo Castro (Pablo Larraín’s The Club, No, and Tony Manero), Rojo is a timely drama whose historical references hold eerie resonance for our contemporary political moment—suggesting social complicity in the unfolding of far-reaching authoritarian regimes. Rojo, one of the most talked-about films at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival following its world premiere there, formalizes the young Naishtat as an emerging international star.

Opens Friday, July 12 at Film at Lincoln Center and the Quad Cinema in New York City
Opens Friday, July 19 at the Laemmle Royal
Playing August

END OF THE CENTURY
(Fin de siglo, Lucio Castro, Argentina, 2019, 84 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)

In his alluring debut feature, Lucio Castro offers both a sun-soaked European travelogue and an epic, decades-spanning romance. When Ocho (Juan Barberini), a 30-something Argentine poet on vacation in Barcelona, spots Javi (Ramón Pujol), a Spaniard from Berlin, from the balcony of his Airbnb, the attraction is subtle but persistent. After a missed connection on the beach, a third chance encounter escalates to a seemingly random hookup. But are these two merely beautiful strangers in a foreign city or are they part of each other’s histories—and maybe even their destinies?

Castro deliberately parses out mystery after mystery, leading the audience on a journey of discovery as the two leading men discover themselves and each other. With sumptuous lensing of a Barcelona summertime and tangible chemistry between the actors, End of the Century is a love story that echoes across time.

Opens Friday August 16
IFC Center, New York City
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Opens September 20
Nuart Theatre, Los Angeles, CA
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Opens September 27
Opera Plaza Cinemas - San Francisco, CA
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Opens September 27
Shattuck Cinemas - Berkeley, CA
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THE CHAMBERMAID / LA CAMARISTA

A film by Lila Avilés
(Mexico, 2018 In Spanish with English subtitles)

A poignant and delicate class portrait, Avilés’ film follows Eve — played by the wonderful Gabriela Cartol (I Dream in Another Language) — a young chambermaid working in one of the most luxurious hotels in Mexico City, an exclusive glass tower inhabited by wealthy guests whose lives she imagines by their belongings left behind and their absences. Long, laborious shifts prevent Eve from caring for her child as she helps guests with their own children, but she believes she can better her situation after she’s promoted to work at executive-level suites, for which she accepts a grueling schedule. In keeping with her desire to improve her lot, she simultaneously enrolls in the hotel’s adult education program. 

An incipient friendship with her coworker and an awkward, silent flirtation with a window-washer prod her toward much needed bravery. When things don’t turn out as planned, Eve transforms her solitary explorations and newfound courage into the strength to face a life outside the high-class prison that’s entrapped her, breaking rules and discovering herself. 

Inspired by Avilés’ theater play of the same name — in turn inspired by Sophie Calle’s 1980 artistic project “The Hotel,” in which the French artist worked as a chambermaid in a Venice hotel — The Chambermaid is a standout among a thriving new generation of Mexican and Latin American female filmmakers. With impeccable cinematography, a near-documentary eye, and a humanistic gaze, the film signals Avilés as a talent to watch.

Opens Wednesday, June 26
Film Forum, New York City
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Opens Friday, July 5
Laemmle Royal and Laemmle Playhouse 7, Los Angeles
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Opens Friday, July 5
Roxie Theater, San Francisco
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August 14 - 18
Roxy Hotel Cinema

SÓCRATES
A film by Alexandre Moratto
(Brazil/USA, 71 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)

survive on his own. As he faces isolation because of his sexuality, his search for a decent, worthy life reaches a breaking point. Produced by Ramin Bahrani (99 Homes), Executive Produced by Fernando Meirelles (City of God), and filmed with a micro budget of under US $20,000, Sócrates is the debut feature film from Brazilian-American director Alexandre Moratto. It is the first feature produced by the Querô Institute in Brazil where it was co-written, produced, and acted by at-risk teenagers from local low-income communities, with the support of Unicef.

Opens Friday, August 9 at the Laemmle Music Hall in Los Angeles
Opens Friday, August 16 at Cinema Village in New York City

OVID.tv, the new and groundbreaking subscription video-on-demand platform, has announced the digital release of six contemporary classic Latin American documentaries by some of the region’s most acclaimed directors. The films, from Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, and Mexico, will be available for streaming starting Friday, August 9, at OVID.tv.

The new titles are:

·       Elena, the acclaimed debut feature by Brazilian director Petra Costa (The Edge of Democracy);

·       The Tiniest Place (El lugar más pequeño) by Tatiana Huezo, “one of the most impressive debuts by a Mexican filmmaker since Carlos Reygadas’ Japon” (Variety);

·       Natalia Almada’s powerful Cannes Directors' Fortnight entry El Velador;

·       Beyond My Grandfather Allende (Allende, mi abuelo Allende) by Marcia Tambutti Allende, winner of the Best Documentary, Golden Eye Prize at the Cannes Film Festival;

·       The Other Side of the Wall (Al otro lado del muro) by Pau Ortiz, winner of the top prize for Best International Documentary at both the HotDocs and Chicago film festivals; and

·       10th Parallel by Silvio Da-Rin, a voyage deep into the Amazon to explore the implications of Brazil's policy on uncontacted indigenous tribes.

In addition to these new titles, OVID’s library already features several acclaimed Latin American films including Patricio Guzmán’s seminal documentaries The Battle of Chile and Nostalgia for the Light; the Mexican EMMY documentary winner Presumed Guilty by Roberto Hernández and Geoffrey Smith; Cinema Novo, Erik Rocha’s love letter to the influential Brazilian film movement; the Sundance Award winner When Two Worlds Collide by Heidi Brandenburg and Mathew Orzel; and the New York Times Critics’ Pick 108 (Cuchillo de palo) by Paraguayan director Renate Costa. 

No other SVOD service makes available to US audiences such a large (and growing), collection of prize-winning and classic documentaries from Latin America, as OVID.tv.

LA FLOR
A film by Mariano Llinás
(Argentina, 2018, 803 min. In Spanish, French, English, Russian, German, Swedish, and Italian with English subtitles)

“A decade in the making, Mariano Llinás’s follow-up to his 2008 cult classic Extraordinary Stories is an unrepeatable labor of love and madness that redefines the concept of binge-viewing. The director himself appears at the start to preview the six disparate episodes that await, each starring the same four remarkable actresses: Elisa Carricajo, Valeria Correa, Pilar Gamboa, and Laura Paredes. Overflowing with nested subplots and whiplash digressions, La Flor shape-shifts from a B-movie to a musical to a spy thriller to a category-defying metafiction—all of them without endings—to a remake of a very well-known French classic and, finally, to an enigmatic period piece that lacks a beginning (granted, all notions of beginnings and endings become fuzzy after 14 hours). An adventure in scale and duration, La Flor is a marvelously entertaining exploration of the possibilities of fiction that lands somewhere close to its outer limits.” —Film Society of Lincoln Center

Opens Friday, August 2
Film at Lincoln Center
Filmmaker in person opening weekend!
Parts 1 & 2 screen August 2-8 and parts 3 & 4 screen August 9-15; check back for more details.

IS THAT YOU / ¿ERES TÚ, PAPÁ?
A film by Rudy Riverón Sánchez
(Cuba/United Kingdom, 2018, 107 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)

Living in a modest shack in the Cuban countryside, thirteen-year-old Lili and her mother appear trapped in a meager, suffocating existence by her domineering father, Eduardo. His sudden absence should represent a new freedom for the girl and her mother, but Lili is distraught, and we come to discover just how strong the influence of this monstrous man is over his family. In desperation at losing Eduardo, Lili carries out a ritual taught to her by a spiritualist to help bring him back, leading Lili to uncover a disturbing truth about her father's disappearance.

Opens Friday, August 2 at Laemmle Music Hall in Los Angeles

CHULAS FRONTERAS
(Les Blank & Chris Strachwitz, USA, 1976, 58 min.)

A zesty introduction to the music and culture of the Texas-Mexican border. From joyous, lively dance tunes to soulful, political work songs, Norteña music fuses traditional Mexican harmonies with German dancehall rhythms and a little something extra. Newly restored in 4k, Chulas Fronteras celebrates the famed Mexican-American musicians of the borderlands, the migrant farming communities from which they come, the strong family bonds of Tejanos, and the social protest ethos inscribed in their music. Blank & Strachwitz's film brims with tender affection for its subjects, the vitality of their marvelous music, and the generosity of spirit they show in the face of hardship. Featuring Flaco Jiménez, Lydia Mendoza, Los Alegres de Terán, and many others.

Screening with Del Mero Corazón (Straight from the Heart)

Opens Friday, June 28
Metrograph
7 Ludlow Street, New York City
For tickets: bit.ly/chulasnyc
Maureen Gosling & Harrod Blank in person Friday, June 28 & Saturday, June 29!

Human Rights Watch Film Festival presents

IT’S ALL GOOD / ESTÁ TODO BIEN
A film by Tuki Jencquel
(Venezuela/Germany, 2018, 70 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)

”A country's collapse is dramatic and in hindsight seems inevitable, but when it's experienced gradually, on a day-by-day basis, it can almost pass unnoticed, like looking in the mirror each morning and not seeing how you age.” - Tuki Jencquel, Director, Está todo bien

Venezuela is a country rich in natural resources that for decades has prided itself on having one of the best public health systems in the entire region. Today, the near-total collapse of Venezuela’s health system is resulting in severe medicine shortages, a dramatic increase in infant mortality, the reappearance of once-eradicated diseases like diphtheria, and a mass exodus of doctors to hospitals overseas. In Está todo bien, Caracas-born Tuki Jencquel asks a pharmacist, trauma surgeon, activist and two patients to confront the same questions millions of Venezuelans are facing: protest or acquiesce, emigrate or remain, lose all hope or hang onto faith? 

June 19, 8:45pm at the IFC Center
Q&A to follow with filmmaker Tuki Jencquel and Francisco Valencia, film subject and director of Codevida

June 20, 6:15pm at Film at Lincoln Center's Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
Q&A to follow with filmmaker Tuki Jencquel and Francisco Valencia, film subject and director of Codevida

Latin American Films at Rooftop Films

Co-Presented by Cinema Tropical

Cinema Brasileiro

Presented as Part of ‘Brazilian Modern:
The Living Art of Roberto Burle Marx

June - September 2019
New York Botanical Garden

As part of the exhibit “Brazilian Modern: The Living Art of Roberto Burle Marx.” taking place Saturday, June 8 – Sunday, September 29, 2019 at the New York Botanical Garden, Cinema Tropical has curated an exciting series of award-winning films and documentaries—some of them to be screened for the time in the U.S.—, which will explore themes central to Roberto Burle Marx’s creative life and times. Various screenings will feature discussions with directors following the film.

Programmed by Mary Jane Marcasiano, organized by Pilar D. Garrett.

All screenings at
Ross Hall at New York Botanical Garden
2900 Southern Boulevard, Bronx, NY
(718) 817-8700 / www.nybg.org
Screenings included in exhibit admission.

Click here for complete information

TOO LATE TO DIE YOUNG / TARDE PARA MORIR JOVEN
(Dominga Sotomayor, Chile, Brazil/Argentina/Netherlands/Qatar, 2018, 110 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)

The year 1990 was when Chile transitioned to democracy, but all of that seems a world away for 16-year-old Sofia, who lives far off the grid in a mountain enclave of artists and bohemians. Too Late to Die Young takes place during the hot, languorous days between Christmas and New Year’s Day, when the troubling realities of the adult world—and the elemental forces of nature—begin to intrude on her teenage idyll. Shot in dreamily diaphanous, sun-splashed images and set to period-perfect pop, the second feature from one of Latin American cinema’s most artful and distinctive voices is at once nostalgic and piercing, a portrait of a young woman—and a country—on the cusp of exhilarating and terrifying change. A KimStim release.

Opens Friday, May 31
Film at Lincoln Center, New York City
Q&As with Dominga Sotomayor at the 6:45pm screenings on May 31 and June 1 
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Opens Friday, June 7
Laemmle Music Hall, Los Angeles
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THE WANDERING SOAP OPERA
A film by Raúl Ruiz & Valeria Sarmiento
(La telenovela errante, Chile, 1990/2017, 80 min. In Spanish with English subtitles, )

Raúl Ruiz passed away in 2011, but it should come as little surprise that a filmmaker as mind-bogglingly prolific, subversive, and mischievous as Ruiz wouldn’t let that get in the way of releasing a new film. The footage that comprises The Wandering Soap Opera was the result of a 6-day workshop that Ruiz gave for actors and technicians in his native Chile in 1990, during his first return visit since his departure for France following Augusto Pinochet’s 1973 coup d’état.

Restored and completed by Valeria Sarmiento—Ruiz’s wife and editor, and an accomplished filmmaker in her own right—The Wandering Soap Opera turns out to be far more than a curiosity. Its status as Ruiz’s first post-dictatorship Chilean film would alone qualify it as an important film within his vast oeuvre (Ruiz made more than 100 films over the course of his career), but above and beyond that historical significance it proves to be a typically dazzling and inventive work that embeds a penetrating portrait of a society transfigured by the effects of almost 20 years of a repressive dictatorship into the form of a Borgesian parody of telenovela conventions.

The Wandering Soap Opera contains passages that are as deadpan funny and astonishingly resourceful as anything in Ruiz’s body of work, while Sarmiento’s elegant assemblage (she bookends Ruiz’s own material with footage of him leading the workshop) renders the final product a moving tribute to an extraordinary filmmaker for whom even a hundred films wasn’t enough.

Distributed by The Cinema Guild.

New York Times Critics' Pick!
"A critique of the self-serious idiocy of authority and a celebration of the anarchic power of imagination"
—A.O. Scott, New York Times

“The film is based on the idea…that ‘there’s no such thing as Chilean reality,’ that reality in his country is a series of soap operas. Ruiz specialized in making wry comments about his homeland: one episode in his film bears the heading, ‘If you behave badly in this life, you become Chilean in the next one. R.R.’” –Jonathan Romney, Film Comment

Opens Friday, May 31
Facets Cinémathèque
1517 W Fullerton Ave, Chicago, IL 
www.facets.org

Opens Friday, June 7
Laemmle Music Hall
9036 Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA
Additional screenings at Laemmle Glendale on June 10, Laemmle Playhouse 7 on June 11, Laemmle NoHo 7 on June 12, and Laemmle Monica Film Center on June 13.
www.laemmle.com

COUNCILWOMAN
(Margo Guernsey, USA, 2019, 57 min. In English and Spanish with English subtitles)

Politicians aren’t often full-time hotel housekeepers, grandmothers, union members and immigrants working service jobs. But Carmen Castillo changes that when she wins a seat on the City Council in Providence, Rhode Island. Carmen Castillo is a Dominican City Councilwoman who maintains her job cleaning hotel rooms, as she takes on her new role in politics. She faces skeptics who say she doesn’t have the education to govern, the power of corporate interests who take a stand against her fight for a $15/hourly wage in the City, and a tough re-election against two contenders—all of this while balancing the challenges of managing a full-time job cleaning hotel rooms, and a personal relationship. It’s a journey behind the scenes of politics after the victory.

Friday, May 10, 8pm
Workers Unite! Film Festival
Cinema Village
22 East 12th Street, New York City

OUR EVIL / MAL NOSSO
(Samuel Galli, Brazil, 2017, 92 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)

Our Evil follows Arthur (Ademir Esteves), a former exorcist and doting father preparing for his only daughter’s foray into college. Hiding a secret from his own past in order to protect her future, Arthur hires Charles (Ricardo Casella), a professional hitman and amateur serial killer, to help him fight a demonic power he believes is coming to destroy his daughter’s soul. 

Rooted in a new retro score by Brazilian brothers Gustavo and Guilherme Garbato, Our Evil plays with noir motifs and gritty, handheld realism to offer a piercing personal study reminiscent of Lynch’s particular brand of horror. A possible break-out cult hit for fans of foreign scares, Our Evil marks Galli as a promising newcomer to the field.

Opens Friday, May 10
Laemmle Glendale
207 N. Maryland Avenue, Glendale, CA