Mar
8
to Mar 21

Los Angeles Theatrical Release of THE HEIRESSES

heiresses-slide.jpg

THE HEIRESSES

Directed by Marcelo Martinessi
(Paraguay/Germany/Brazil/Uruguay/Norway/France, 2018, 98 min. In Spanish with English)

Chela and Chiquita have been partners for decades, lifelong members of Paraguay’s moneyed elite - until the money runs out. Now they spend their days selling their furniture, glassware, and silver to whoever will make them an offer. When Chiquita, the more garrulous and resilient of the two women, is sent to prison, Chela has to cope with loneliness and incipient poverty. Then a new option develops. The movie is anchored by two extraordinary, magnetic performances (Ana Brun as Chela won the Best Actress prize in Berlin) that suggest the untold inner resources of its principal characters. The director credits Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT as an important influence, describing THE HEIRESSES as “a coming-of-age film for a 60-year-old woman.”

A Distrib Films US

Opens Friday, March 8
Laemmle Royal, Playhouse and Clarendon
www.laemmle.com

View Event →
Mar
25
6:30 PM18:30

Indocumentales Presents I'M LEAVING NOW

ImLeavingNow1.jpg

I'm Leaving Now 
(Ya me voy, Lindsey Cordero and Armando Croda, Mexico/USA, 2018, 74 mins. In Spanish with English subtitles) 

Felipe has come to a crossroads. After 16 years in Brooklyn, working three low-paying jobs and collecting bottles on the street in his spare time and sending the bulk of his earnings home to his family in Mexico, he's decided to return to his wife and the children he hasn't seen in almost two decades. But when he informs his family of his homecoming, 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 US, continuing to earn. 

Shot over two years in the heart of Brooklyn’s immigrant community, I'm Leaving Now (Ya me voy) is a searingly intimate portrait of one undocumented worker on the margins. A blend of documentary with some fictional elements, the film allows the rhythms, emotions and sounds of Felipe’s life and the city to drive the story, utilizing a structure and a style often not seen in documentaries. Impressionistic, cinematic and with the city as its soundscape, the film pushes the boundary of how documentary can capture the lives of the unseen, ultimately elevating this one lonely man’s story into a lyrical meditation on themes of family and home, loneliness and love. As Felipe debates whether to stay or go, the film builds to a heartbreaking portrait of the struggle and drama that exist in the lives of the often invisible figures toiling away in the kitchens, hotel rooms and construction sites of our biggest cities. Eschewing politics, the film is political nonetheless – a quiet and unforgettable snapshot of one man held in suspension between a world of endless work and a faraway home


Post-screening discussion with filmmakers Armando Croda and Lindsey Cordero, writer/producer Josh Alexander, and Director of Quantitative Research at New American Economy, Andrew Lim. Moderated by Executive Director of the World Council of Peoples for the United Nations (WCPUN), Shamina de Gonzaga. 


This program is free and open to the public. I’m Leaving Now is screened as part of Carnegie Hall’s ‘Migrations: The Making of America Festival’ - a citywide program with planned events through the months of March, April, and May. For more information, please click here. 


PLEASE THE EVENT REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED.
STANDBY LINE AT THE DAY OF THE EVENT ON A FIRST-COME, FIRST SERVED BASIS.
SEATING IS LIMITED.

View Event →
Apr
5
7:10 PM19:10

LOS REYES at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival

  • Film Society of Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS
los-reyes-documentary.jpg

LOS REYES
(Bettina Perut, Iván Osnovikoff,  Chile/Germany, 2018, 78 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)

“Los reyes is Spanish for “the kings,” and in a public park in Santiago, Chile, two dark-haired stray mutts, Football and Chola, are the titular monarchs (more accurately, king and queen). There’s a lot to do: Between naps, they persecute the outrageous trespasses of bicycles, mopeds, and donkeys and confiscate empty plastic bottles and old tennis balls. Among their subjects are the park’s shiftless skateboarding set, whose overheard conversations give the film a series of disconnected human tangents. Mostly, though, Los Reyes is a patient and close study of two dogs. Really close: Wet noses, tongues, paws, and flies come in for spooky macro-lens shots. But it’s the dogs’ hearts we get closest to. Directors Bettina Perut and Iván Osnovikoff bring playful edits and a clever narrative structure to the story of an entirely public yet largely unnoticed friendship. “

View Event →
Apr
11
to Apr 13

New York Premiere of COUNCILWOMAN

COUNCILWOMAN1.jpg

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.

Thursday, April 11 at 3:15pm
Saturday, April 13 at 5:05pm
AMC Loews 34th Street
312 West 34th Street, New York City

View Event →
Apr
11
7:15 PM19:15

New York Premiere of THE WEAK ONES

LosDebiles1.jpg

THE WEAK ONES / LOS DÉBILES
A film by Raúl Rico & Eduardo Giralt Brun
(Mexico, 2018, 65 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)

New York premiere!

“The stoic Victor gets into an argument with The Selfie, a member of a youth gang. Soon afterwards, Victor’s dogs are murdered. He arms himself and sets out for revenge, in search of the rival who’s now disappeared without a trace. But the journey proves difficult, taking Victor through Sinaloa, the stretch of land on Mexico’s Pacific coast that a ruthless criminal cartel has transformed into bloody terrain. Violence and death are part of everyday life here. Victor’s journey is hemmed in by an eccentric cast of characters, each of whom reveals a new clue on where The Selfie might be found – until the two rivals finally meet in a brilliant and unexpected finale.

“With The Weak Ones, directors Raúl Rico and Eduardo Giralt Brun deliver a contemporary spin on a classic tale of crime and punishment, a virtuoso accomplishment that achieves the seemingly impossible: a revenge film in which the need for vengeance ultimately fades into the background. With calm and composed camera work and marvelously droll humor, they have created a road movie extraordinarily rich in atmosphere, featuring striking locales in a fascinating landscape that manages to be two things at once: heaven and hell.” –Berlinale Forum

Thursday, April 11, 7:15pm
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Avenue, at 2nd Street, New York City
www.anthologyfilmarchives.com / (212) 505-5181 


This screening is part of: If You Can Screen It There: Premiering Contemporary Latin American Cinema

 
 
View Event →
Apr
27
6:00 PM18:00

Indocumentales Presents THE UNAFRAID

silvia-bor2_2_orig.jpg

INDOCUMENTALES Presents:

THE UNAFRAID
(Anayansi Prado and Heather Courtney, USA, 2018, 87 mins. In English and Spanish with English and Spanish subtitles)

The Unafraid is a feature length documentary that follows the personal lives of three DACA students in Georgia, a state that has banned them from attending their top state universities and disqualifies them from receiving in-state tuition at any other public college. Shot in an ob- servational style over a period of four years, this film takes an intimate look at the lives of Ale- jandro, Silvia and Aldo as they navigate activism, pursuing their right to education, and fighting for the rights of their families and communities. The Unafraid shows us what it means to grow up both American and undocumented in the United States.

Post-screening discussion with Staff Attorney at the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project (IRP) Celso Perez, Mexican Student Association (MexSa NYU) representative Andres Guerrero, and L.U.C.H.A. NYU representative (speaker TBD). Moderated by World Council of Peoples for the United Nations (WCPUN) Executive Director, Shamina de Gonzaga. 

 
 
View Event →
May
9
7:15 PM19:15

U.S. Premiere of STRANGE BUT TRUE

ExtranoPeroVerdadero1.jpg

STRANGE BUT TRUE / EXTRAÑO PERO VERDADERO
A film by Michel Lipkes
Mexico, 2017, 93 min. In Spanish with English subtitles.

New York premiere!
Filmmaker in person


“Jonathan and Yesi are in love, but fearfully keep this from Mister Clean, their dodgy boss on the bin wagons. In Mexico City, there is no end to the refuse. Cardboard and plastic are separated on the spot, and half-empty bottles of drink finished off in one go; for tips, they will collect the refuse from your kitchen. Everything changes when a body turns up among the containers, its pockets stuffed with cash. Mister Clean comes up with a plan that will benefit them all. In today’s Mexico, it’s simply impossible not to get tangled up in the wretchedness of the violent underworld. This second feature by Michel Lipkes shows an inescapable downward spiral – though not without a glimmer of hope – in luscious black-and-white. Film buff Lipkes nods to masters through clever references and symbolism, making Strange but True both an homage and movie-spotter’s delight on several levels. Hope, love, and belief in the power of cinema.” —Rotterdam International Film Festival

Thursday, May 9, 7:15pm
 32 Second Avenue, at 2nd Street, New York City
www.anthologyfilmarchives.com / (212) 505-5181 

This screening is part of: If You Can Screen It There: Premiering Contemporary Latin American Cinema

View Event →
May
17
to May 23

New York Theatrical Release of THE WANDERING SOAP OPERA

TheWanderingSoapOpera2.jpg

THE WANDERING SOAP OPERA
A film by Raúl Ruiz & Valeria Sarmiento
(La telenovela errante, Chile, 1990/2017, 80 min. In Spanish with English subtitles, )

NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!

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.

“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

“In the funny and perverse The Wandering Soap Opera, the arch conventions of TV have seeped into the real world and vice versa until everyone not only is a star in his or her own strange show, but is aware of and watches the shows others star in.” –Daniel Kasman, MUBI

View Event →
Jun
27
7:15 PM19:15

U.S. Premiere of THE OMISSION

Unknown.jpeg

THE OMISSION / LA OMISIÓN
(Sebastián Schjaer, Argentina, 2018, 86 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)

U.S. premiere!

“In a snowy and industrial city in the south of Argentina, Paula, a 23-year-old girl from Buenos Aires, starts an intense job hunt with the sole purpose of saving money. The lack of a job, a home and a stable emotional environment will end up turning that search into a personal and introspective journey. She will have to deal with the hard living conditions in the south as well as with the unsolved aspects of her life, which will gradually be revealed. She knows she is shouting, but she can’t hear herself. Resembling a combination of Carey Mulligan, Sandra Huller, and Michelle Williams, Brito—next to be seen prominently in a feature-length documentary by American avant-garde legend James Benning—keeps Paula flintily sympathetic throughout. She etches a subtle and believable portrait of an astute person experienced far beyond her tender years, and considerably tougher than her gamine looks suggest.” —Neil Young, Hollywood Reporter

Thursday, June 27, 7:15pm

View Event →
Mar
14
7:15 PM19:15

NOELÍ OVERSEAS at Anthology Film Archives

NoelienlosPaises.jpg

NOELÍ OVERSEAS
(Noelí en los países, Laura Amelia Guzmán and Israel Cárdenas, Dominican Republic, 2017, 54 min. In Spanish, English, and French with English subtitles)

Yanet Mojica, a young actress, made her cinematic debut alongside Geraldine Chaplin in Laura Amelia Guzmán and Israel Cárdenas’s 2014 film, Sand Dollars. In their more recent documentary/fiction hybrid, Noelí Overseas, Mojica takes center stage.

“Hired to star in a fashion infomercial to be shot in Venice in the majestic Hotel Excelsior, Yanet sets foot in Europe for the first time. Once the prudishness of the crew members has been overcome, she joyously drags them along into a Caribbean universe made up of rhythm and dance. Although the filmmakers still dream of exile, the empowerment of a young woman is what ultimately manifests itself here. Yanet lives on the screen through her strength and her grace. She tackles every moment with lightheartedness. The image and its relationship with the sound design lends an almost phantasmagorical feel to certain sequences while depicting these elements through a discerning distance.” —Visions du Réel

Thursday, March 14, 7:15pm

 
 
View Event →
Mar
14
to Mar 17

Caribbean Film Series: A 5th Anniversary Festival

Cocote-2.jpg

Caribbean Film Series:
A 5th Anniversary Festival

March 14 - 17, 2019
BAMcinématek

From Thursday, March 14 through Sunday, March 17, Caribbean Film Academy, The Luminal Theater, Third Horizon, and BAM Film present Caribbean Film Series: A 5th Anniversary Festival, a four-day festival marking the five-year anniversary of the Caribbean Film Series, a platform for fresh and contemporary films from the Caribbean and its diaspora. In shorts, narrative feature films, and documentaries from Jamaica, Haiti, Puerto Rico, the U.K., and more, the series explores the thematic and aesthetic diversity of Caribbean cinema.  

Cinema Tropical is proud to be a presenting partner for a number of Spanish-speaking and Latino influence films in the Festival, including  the moving Puerto Rican historical sovereignty documentary 1950: The Nationalist Uprising (Davila Marichal, 2017); the Victor Jara Collective’s, The Terror and the Time (1978) and In the Sky’s Wild Noise (1983), two thorough and poetic examinations of Guyana’s colonial and political heritage, inspired by the legacy of the eponymous Chilean folk singer and dissident; and the critically-regarded Dominican crime fable Cocote (De los Santos Arias, 2017).  

All screenings at:
BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn
(718) 636-4100 / www.BAM.org/Film  

1950: THE NATIONALIST UPRISING (José Manuel Dávila Marichal, Puerto Rico, 2017, 105 min.) Buy Tickets Electrifying, revealing and timely, this documentary revisits a seminal event in Puerto Rico’s history: the ten days in October 1950 when one hundred people, members of the island’s Nationalist Party, took up arms to overthrow the rule of the United States and establish Puerto Rican sovereignty. The insurgents, outnumbered and ill-equipped, were crushed by the police and the National Guard, and either killed or imprisoned. Buttressed by archival film and photographs and animated reenactments, 1950: The Nationalist Uprising presents the testimonies of five Puerto Ricans who participated in this almost forgotten struggle. They speak about the consequences of the uprising on their lives, and the ideal of freedom that burns within them still. Preceded by AN EXCAVATION OF US (Shirley Bruno, Haiti, 2018, 11 min.) The shadows of Napoleon’s army fall upon their boat traveling through the mysterious cave named after Marie Jeanne, a female soldier who fought in the Haitian Revolution. It is this battle inside her cave that will become the most successful slave revolution in history. Saturday, March 16, 9:30pm

1950: THE NATIONALIST UPRISING
(José Manuel Dávila Marichal, Puerto Rico, 2017, 105 min.)
Buy Tickets

Electrifying, revealing and timely, this documentary revisits a seminal event in Puerto Rico’s history: the ten days in October 1950 when one hundred people, members of the island’s Nationalist Party, took up arms to overthrow the rule of the United States and establish Puerto Rican sovereignty. The insurgents, outnumbered and ill-equipped, were crushed by the police and the National Guard, and either killed or imprisoned. Buttressed by archival film and photographs and animated reenactments, 1950: The Nationalist Uprising presents the testimonies of five Puerto Ricans who participated in this almost forgotten struggle. They speak about the consequences of the uprising on their lives, and the ideal of freedom that burns within them still.

Preceded by AN EXCAVATION OF US (Shirley Bruno, Haiti, 2018, 11 min.)
The shadows of Napoleon’s army fall upon their boat traveling through the mysterious cave named after Marie Jeanne, a female soldier who fought in the Haitian Revolution. It is this battle inside her cave that will become the most successful slave revolution in history.

Saturday, March 16, 9:30pm

‘Dreaming to Change the World: The Films of The Victor Jara Collective’ THE TERROR AND THE TIME and IN THE SKY’S WILD NOISE (The Victor Jara Collective, Guyana, 1978, 1983, 105 min.) Buy Tickets Inspired by Chilean dissident Victor Jara, and Guyana’s connection to the Third Cinema movement, The Victor Jara Collective presents two seldom seen documentaries. The Terror and the Time (1978) focuses on the 1953 upheavals in what was then British Guiana. This documentary was essentially banned by the Guyanese government, and it would be five years before the collective made their second and final film, In the Sky’s Wild Noise (1983). A mid-length work, it features the late historian and activist Walter Rodney, author of the seminal book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa . A self-styled “guerrilla intellectual” whose thinking influenced the black power movements in the US and the Caribbean, Rodney was assassinated by a car bomb in Guyana in 1980. Q&A with Lewanne Jones of the Victor Jara Collective Sunday, March 17, 1:30pm

‘Dreaming to Change the World: The Films of The Victor Jara Collective’
THE TERROR AND THE TIME and IN THE SKY’S WILD NOISE
(The Victor Jara Collective, Guyana, 1978, 1983, 105 min.)
Buy Tickets

Inspired by Chilean dissident Victor Jara, and Guyana’s connection to the Third Cinema movement, The Victor Jara Collective presents two seldom seen documentaries. The Terror and the Time (1978) focuses on the 1953 upheavals in what was then British Guiana. This documentary was essentially banned by the Guyanese government, and it would be five years before the collective made their second and final film, In the Sky’s Wild Noise (1983). A mid-length work, it features the late historian and activist Walter Rodney, author of the seminal book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. A self-styled “guerrilla intellectual” whose thinking influenced the black power movements in the US and the Caribbean, Rodney was assassinated by a car bomb in Guyana in 1980.

Q&A with Lewanne Jones of the Victor Jara Collective

Sunday, March 17, 1:30pm

COCOTE (Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias, Dominican Republic, 2017 , 106 min.) Buy Tickets A rapturous crime fable set in the Dominican Republic’s Cocote follows Alberto, a kind-hearted gardener returning home to attend his father’s funeral. When he discovers that a powerful local figure is responsible for his father’s death, Alberto realizes that he’s been summoned by his family to avenge the murder. It’s an unthinkable act — especially for him, an Evangelical Christian. But as pressure mounts, he sees few ways out. Questions of faith, tradition and honor course through this electrifying film, which, seemingly at the speed of thought itself, jumps between film formats, colors, and aspect ratios, radically envisioning a community torn asunder by senseless violence. Sunday, March 17, 4pm

COCOTE
(Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias, Dominican Republic, 2017 , 106 min.)
Buy Tickets

A rapturous crime fable set in the Dominican Republic’s Cocote follows Alberto, a kind-hearted gardener returning home to attend his father’s funeral. When he discovers that a powerful local figure is responsible for his father’s death, Alberto realizes that he’s been summoned by his family to avenge the murder. It’s an unthinkable act — especially for him, an Evangelical Christian. But as pressure mounts, he sees few ways out. Questions of faith, tradition and honor course through this electrifying film, which, seemingly at the speed of thought itself, jumps between film formats, colors, and aspect ratios, radically envisioning a community torn asunder by senseless violence.

Sunday, March 17, 4pm

View Event →
Mar
10
to Mar 16

World Premiere of DAYS OF THE WHALE at SXSW

DaysoftheWhale1.jpg

DAYS OF THE WHALE / LOS DÍAS DE LA BALLENA

Set in the bustling city of Medellín, Colombia’s second-largest city, Days of the Whale follows Cristina and Simon, two young graffiti artists who tag spots around where they live. Their restless spirit leads them to defy a criminal gang when they decide to paint a mural over a threat written on a wall. The love that unites them, their friendship with other artists at La selva—an old house they use as a refuge—and family tensions, come together to tell a story in which the powerful strength of youth is challenged by fear, violence and the difficulties of growing up.   

Days of the Whale offers a vital portrait of the urban culture of a city in flux, and along some other recent films—such as Laura Mora’s Killing Jesus and Juan Sebastián Mesa’s Los Nadie—is putting Medellín in the map as an up-and-coming cinematic capital in Colombia, moving it beyond the media representation as the headquarters of the infamous Pablo Escobar. 

View Event →
Mar
9
to Mar 15

World Premiere of LA MALA NOCHE at SXSW

LaMalaNoche1.jpg

LA MALA NOCHE
((The Longest Night, Gabriela Calvache, Ecuador/Mexico, 2019, 95 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)

Dana, played by Colombian actress Nöelle Schönwald (Love in the Time of Cholera), is a smart and beautiful woman who resorts to prostitution to make a living. She must deliver most of her income to a mafia boss, who protects and exploits her. She's good at what she does, a job she landed by mistake, out of love.

Perhaps, if she behaves well enough, she might get her freedom, but her daughter's illness and addiction to a pharmaceutical drug will prevent her from reaching her goals. An unexpected incident will give her the opportunity to break free from her captor and seek justice with her own hands.

SXSW Screenings:
Saturday, March 9 at 4:45pm at Alamo Ritz 2
Monday, March 11 at 2pm at Alamo Lamar C
Thursday, March 14 at 10:45am at Alamo Ritz 2

View Event →
Mar
1
to Mar 7

U.S. Theatrical Release of THE CANNIBAL CLUB

CanibalClub1.jpg

THE CANNIBAL CLUB

(O clube dos canibais, Guto Parente, Brazil, 2018, 81 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)

Set in the northeastern city of Fortaleza, The Cannibal Club follows Gilda (Ana Luiza Rios) and Octavio (Tavinho Teixeira), an über wealthy couple and members of Brazil’s ruling class, who have their special kink all worked out: manipulative sex and the cooked flesh of their economically and racially-marginalized hired help.

Delightfully scathing, the film reveals Gilda and Octavio as members of an elite club of similarly privileged couples partaking in the same cannibalistic hobby. When Gilda accidentally discovers that the leader has a larger secret, her and Octavio's futures hang in the balance.

 Gustavo Parente has produced a world in which Brazil’s very richest think they are unassailable, laugh and boast about infidelity, and murder at will with impunity—all while complaining about the poor masses that wander their nation’s streets. Locked up in their ivory tower, the irony is that their philosophy and resulting behavior isn’t, in fact, so far from reality - of course, sans the flesh-eating.

Opens Friday, March 1
Laemmle Music Hall in Los Angeles
The Roxie in San Francisco

View Event →
Feb
22
to Feb 26

2019 Neighboring Scenes: New Latin American Cinema

  • Film Society of Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS
Buy-Me-a-Gun-1.jpg

2019 Neighboring Scenes:
New Latin American Cinema

February 22 - 26, 2019
Film Society of Lincoln Center

 

“New York’s Neighboring Scenes series has quickly become
one of the most exciting bits of any year’s film festival schedule”
—Joshua Brunsting, CriterionCast

Now in its fourth year, Neighboring Scenes is the Film Society’s showcase of contemporary Latin American cinema. Highlighting impressive recent productions from across the region, this selective slate of premieres exhibits the breadth of styles, techniques, and approaches employed by Latin American filmmakers today. Neighboring Scenes spans a wide geographic rang, featuring established auteurs as well as fresh talent from the international festival scene. Presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Cinema Tropical.

Organized by Carlos A. Gutiérrez and Cecilia Barrionuevo.

 

All screenings at the Walter Reade Theater
165 W. 65th Street, north side, upper level, New York City
(212) 875-5601 / www.filmlinc.org

4NeighboringScenesLogos.jpg

Special thanks to Emanuel Lobo de Andrade and Beatriz Canepa D’Alessandro, Consulate General of Brazil in New York; Eduardo Almirantearena, Consulate General of Argentina in New York; Federico Zanatta, Consulate General of Uruguay in New York; Marcelo Alderete; John Campos Gomez; Pablo Conde; Erick Gonzalez; Meghan Monsour; Matías Piñeiro.

BELMONTE (Federico Veiroj, Uruguay/Spain/Mexico, 2018, 75 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. New York Premiere) Q&A with Federico Veiroj Buy Tickets A clever and emotionally layered performance from Gonzalo Delgado is the heart of this fourth feature from Uruguayan auteur Federico Veiroj ( The Apostate ). With wry humor and an exquisite sense of place for Montevideo, Belmonte follows Javi (Delgado) at a crisis point in his life. He’s a successful painter in Uruguay’s capital city—presently exploring the tortured world of naked men while preparing an upcoming exhibition—but most of his time is spent working through strained relationships with his elderly parents, his pregnant ex-wife, and their 10-year-old daughter, Celeste (Olivia Molinaro Eijo). As in his second feature, A Useful Life , Veiroj demonstrates a deft ability to examine the art world with compelling ingenuity, this time through a genuinely funny and rich portrait of an artist pining for a luminous family life. Friday, February 22, 7pm

BELMONTE
(Federico Veiroj, Uruguay/Spain/Mexico, 2018, 75 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. New York Premiere)
Q&A with Federico Veiroj
Buy Tickets

A clever and emotionally layered performance from Gonzalo Delgado is the heart of this fourth feature from Uruguayan auteur Federico Veiroj (The Apostate). With wry humor and an exquisite sense of place for Montevideo, Belmonte follows Javi (Delgado) at a crisis point in his life. He’s a successful painter in Uruguay’s capital city—presently exploring the tortured world of naked men while preparing an upcoming exhibition—but most of his time is spent working through strained relationships with his elderly parents, his pregnant ex-wife, and their 10-year-old daughter, Celeste (Olivia Molinaro Eijo). As in his second feature, A Useful Life, Veiroj demonstrates a deft ability to examine the art world with compelling ingenuity, this time through a genuinely funny and rich portrait of an artist pining for a luminous family life.

Friday, February 22, 7pm

OUTER EDGE ( Baixo Centro , Ewerton Belico & Samuel Marotta, Brazil, 2018, 80 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles. North American Premiere) Buy Tickets A beguiling and enigmatic nocturnal experience, set in the peripheral and desolate spaces of the Brazilian city Belo Horizonte, Ewerton Belico and Samuel Marotta’s debut feature gradually wanders into the dreamlike territory of a trance film. Using afro-descendent poetics in its dialogue and soundtrack—a combination of electro-funk and contemporary versions of ancient chants— Outer Edge follows its characters through a labyrinthine circuit of chance encounters to evoke a city haunted by its past. Belico and Marotta, along with director of photography Leonardo Feliciano ( Araby ), capture an atmosphere of madness and despair with an exquisite, clear-eyed sense of place. Friday, February 22, 9:15pm

OUTER EDGE
(Baixo Centro, Ewerton Belico & Samuel Marotta, Brazil, 2018, 80 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles. North American Premiere)
Buy Tickets

A beguiling and enigmatic nocturnal experience, set in the peripheral and desolate spaces of the Brazilian city Belo Horizonte, Ewerton Belico and Samuel Marotta’s debut feature gradually wanders into the dreamlike territory of a trance film. Using afro-descendent poetics in its dialogue and soundtrack—a combination of electro-funk and contemporary versions of ancient chants—Outer Edge follows its characters through a labyrinthine circuit of chance encounters to evoke a city haunted by its past. Belico and Marotta, along with director of photography Leonardo Feliciano (Araby), capture an atmosphere of madness and despair with an exquisite, clear-eyed sense of place.

Friday, February 22, 9:15pm

STILL BURN ( Algo quema , Mauricio Alfredo Ovando, Bolivia, 2018, 77 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. U.S. Premiere) Buy Tickets Alfredo Ovando Candia was a military general who served as Co-President of Bolivia from 1965–66 (and again from 1969–70) after overthrowing sitting President Víctor Paz Estenssoro. His political and military service connected him to the largest massacre of workers in the country’s history, as well as the military campaign in which Che Guevara was killed. Incorporating archival footage recorded during Ovando’s de facto government, home movies, and interviews with relatives, filmmaker Mauricio Alfredo Ovando’s debut feature studies the many profiles of his grandfather to juxtapose his family’s memories with the official history. Winner of the Best Director and FIPRESCI awards at the 2018 Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema, Still Burn is a courageous, perceptive documentary about how collective and personal memories are created from—and ultimately shape—a complicated legacy. Screening with PUNKY EYE ( Ojo malcriado , Luis Arnías, Venezuela/USA, 2018, 15 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. North American Premiere) In Luis Arnías’s Punky Eye, memories become poetic vignettes, sometimes irrational, sometimes precisely conceptual, always stimulating and cinematic. Saturday, February 23, 2pm

STILL BURN
(Algo quema, Mauricio Alfredo Ovando, Bolivia, 2018, 77 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. U.S. Premiere)
Buy Tickets

Alfredo Ovando Candia was a military general who served as Co-President of Bolivia from 1965–66 (and again from 1969–70) after overthrowing sitting President Víctor Paz Estenssoro. His political and military service connected him to the largest massacre of workers in the country’s history, as well as the military campaign in which Che Guevara was killed. Incorporating archival footage recorded during Ovando’s de facto government, home movies, and interviews with relatives, filmmaker Mauricio Alfredo Ovando’s debut feature studies the many profiles of his grandfather to juxtapose his family’s memories with the official history. Winner of the Best Director and FIPRESCI awards at the 2018 Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema, Still Burn is a courageous, perceptive documentary about how collective and personal memories are created from—and ultimately shape—a complicated legacy.

Screening with PUNKY EYE
(Ojo malcriado, Luis Arnías, Venezuela/USA, 2018, 15 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. North American Premiere)
In Luis Arnías’s Punky Eye, memories become poetic vignettes, sometimes irrational, sometimes precisely conceptual, always stimulating and cinematic.

Saturday, February 23, 2pm

BUY ME A GUN ( Cómprame un revólver , Julio Hernández Cordón, Mexico/Colombia, 2018, 84 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. New York premiere) Q&A with Julio Hernández Cordón Buy Tickets The seventh film by Meso-American filmmaker Julio Hernández Cordón ( I Promise You Anarchy ) is a harrowing, blistering vision of 21st-century Mexico. In the near future, when women are endangered and the only order comes from the lawless and elusive cartel, a young girl named Huck (Matilde Hernández Guinea) must hide her gender in order to help her tormented drug addict father (Rogelio Sosa) manage an abandoned baseball field. Absurdist, macabre, and exhilarating, this highlight from the 2018 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight is like a cross between The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Mad Max , told through Hernández Cordón’s lo-fi futurist visual style. Saturday, February 23, 4pm

BUY ME A GUN
(Cómprame un revólver, Julio Hernández Cordón, Mexico/Colombia, 2018, 84 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. New York premiere)
Q&A with Julio Hernández Cordón
Buy Tickets

The seventh film by Meso-American filmmaker Julio Hernández Cordón (I Promise You Anarchy) is a harrowing, blistering vision of 21st-century Mexico. In the near future, when women are endangered and the only order comes from the lawless and elusive cartel, a young girl named Huck (Matilde Hernández Guinea) must hide her gender in order to help her tormented drug addict father (Rogelio Sosa) manage an abandoned baseball field. Absurdist, macabre, and exhilarating, this highlight from the 2018 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight is like a cross between The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Mad Max, told through Hernández Cordón’s lo-fi futurist visual style.

Saturday, February 23, 4pm

NONA. IF THEY SOAK ME, I’LL BURN THEM ( Nona. Si me mojan, yo los quemo , Camila José Donoso, Chile/Brazil/France/Korea, 2019, 100 min. North American Premiere) Q&A with Camila José Donoso Buy Tickets As with her previous features, Naomi Campbel and Casa Roshell , Chilean filmmaker Camila José Donoso’s richly detailed film fully immerses the viewer in its world, mixing digital, video, and 16mm to portray its beautifully ambivalent subject. At 66, Nona (Josefina Ramirez, José Donoso’s grandmother) lives alone and is recuperating from cataract surgery while a mysterious fire rages across southern Chile and generates unrest in her otherwise sleepy town. Capturing her routines and relationships while folding in past memories and a violent pathology with the present, Nona. If they soak me, I’ll burn them. is as much an allegory of contemporary Chile as it is a deeply personal character study. Screening with A LOCAL KIND OF GOD ( Un dios local , Benjamín Naishtat, Argentina, 2018, 6 min. North American Premiere) An experimental travelogue through India and its people, worshiping ancient gods and selfies. Saturday, February 23, 6:30pm

NONA. IF THEY SOAK ME, I’LL BURN THEM
(Nona. Si me mojan, yo los quemo, Camila José Donoso, Chile/Brazil/France/Korea, 2019, 100 min. North American Premiere)
Q&A with Camila José Donoso
Buy Tickets

As with her previous features, Naomi Campbel and Casa Roshell, Chilean filmmaker Camila José Donoso’s richly detailed film fully immerses the viewer in its world, mixing digital, video, and 16mm to portray its beautifully ambivalent subject. At 66, Nona (Josefina Ramirez, José Donoso’s grandmother) lives alone and is recuperating from cataract surgery while a mysterious fire rages across southern Chile and generates unrest in her otherwise sleepy town. Capturing her routines and relationships while folding in past memories and a violent pathology with the present, Nona. If they soak me, I’ll burn them. is as much an allegory of contemporary Chile as it is a deeply personal character study.

Screening with A LOCAL KIND OF GOD
(Un dios local, Benjamín Naishtat, Argentina, 2018, 6 min. North American Premiere)
An experimental travelogue through India and its people, worshiping ancient gods and selfies.

Saturday, February 23, 6:30pm

THE WOLF HOUSE ( La casa lobo , Chile/Germany, 2018, 75 min. In Spanish and German with English subtitles, New York Premiere) Q&A with Cristóbal León Buy Tickets Evoking Colonia Dignidad, an infamous torture colony operating during the Pinochet regime, The Wolf House is an animated film unlike any other, an exquisitely handcrafted surrealist docu-horror-fairy tale about one of Chile’s darkest periods. It begins with Mary, a young girl who hides in a mysterious house in southern Chile after escaping from a sect of German religious fanatics. Using stop-motion techniques and combining elements of various fables, photography, drawing, sculpture, and stage performance, Joaquín Cociña and Cristóbal León have created a nightmarish shapeshifter of a film. Saturday, February 23, 9:15pm

THE WOLF HOUSE
(La casa lobo, Chile/Germany, 2018, 75 min. In Spanish and German with English subtitles, New York Premiere)
Q&A with Cristóbal León
Buy Tickets

Evoking Colonia Dignidad, an infamous torture colony operating during the Pinochet regime, The Wolf Houseis an animated film unlike any other, an exquisitely handcrafted surrealist docu-horror-fairy tale about one of Chile’s darkest periods. It begins with Mary, a young girl who hides in a mysterious house in southern Chile after escaping from a sect of German religious fanatics. Using stop-motion techniques and combining elements of various fables, photography, drawing, sculpture, and stage performance, Joaquín Cociña and Cristóbal León have created a nightmarish shapeshifter of a film.

Saturday, February 23, 9:15pm

WIÑAYPACHA / ETERNITY (Óscar Catacora, Peru, 2017, 86 min. In Aymara with English subtitles, New York Premiere) Buy Tickets In Óscar Catacora’s acclaimed debut feature—the first Peruvian movie shot entirely in the Aymara language—an elderly couple living in a remote part of the Andes faces the challenges of daily life with courage and determination. Like the protagonist couple in Ozu’s Tokyo Story , Willka and Phaxsi stoically carry the sadness of being forgotten by their long-absent son, and yearn for him to return home from the city. With magnificent cinematography, this landmark film delicately draws the emotional story of the filmmaker’s grandparents, who taught him Aymara when he was sent by his parents to live with them at age seven. Screening with BEFORE MY EYES ( ante mis ojos , Lina Rodríguez, Colombia, 2018, 7 min. In Spanish with English subtitles, U.S. Premiere) Shot on Super 8mm, Before My Eyes is a calm and mysterious portrait of Lake Guatavita, which is considered the inspiration for the legend of El Dorado. Sunday, February 24, 2pm

WIÑAYPACHA / ETERNITY
(Óscar Catacora, Peru, 2017, 86 min. In Aymara with English subtitles, New York Premiere)
Buy Tickets

In Óscar Catacora’s acclaimed debut feature—the first Peruvian movie shot entirely in the Aymara language—an elderly couple living in a remote part of the Andes faces the challenges of daily life with courage and determination. Like the protagonist couple in Ozu’s Tokyo Story, Willka and Phaxsi stoically carry the sadness of being forgotten by their long-absent son, and yearn for him to return home from the city. With magnificent cinematography, this landmark film delicately draws the emotional story of the filmmaker’s grandparents, who taught him Aymara when he was sent by his parents to live with them at age seven.

Screening with BEFORE MY EYES
(ante mis ojos, Lina Rodríguez, Colombia, 2018, 7 min. In Spanish with English subtitles, U.S. Premiere)
Shot on Super 8mm, Before My Eyes is a calm and mysterious portrait of Lake Guatavita, which is considered the inspiration for the legend of El Dorado.


Sunday, February 24, 2pm

THERE WILL COME SOFT RAINS ( Vendrán lluvias suaves , Iván Fund, Argentina, 2018, 81 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. North American Premiere) Q&A with Iván Fund Buy Tickets A remarkable ensemble of young nonprofessional actors leads Argentine director Iván Fund’s latest feature—an oneiric vision of the apocalypse in which a strange incident sends the adults of a working-class neighborhood into an everlasting slumber. Left to their own devices, the town’s children gradually adapt to a peculiar new world that remains largely undisturbed by mankind’s absence. Fund draws inspiration from Sara Teasdale’s 1918 poem of the same name, lucidly translating the imagery and themes of the original text into a lyrical film about the regenerative, blissful elements of nature in the aftermath of calamity. Screening with THE CEMETERY LIGHTENS ( El cementerio se alumbra , Luis Alejandro Yero, Cuba, 2018, 14 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. New York Premiere) Nocturnal, seemingly random images of Havana conjure up a dark, feverish, and deceptively political work about present-day Cuba. Sunday, February 24, 4pm

THERE WILL COME SOFT RAINS
(Vendrán lluvias suaves, Iván Fund, Argentina, 2018, 81 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. North American Premiere)
Q&A with Iván Fund
Buy Tickets

A remarkable ensemble of young nonprofessional actors leads Argentine director Iván Fund’s latest feature—an oneiric vision of the apocalypse in which a strange incident sends the adults of a working-class neighborhood into an everlasting slumber. Left to their own devices, the town’s children gradually adapt to a peculiar new world that remains largely undisturbed by mankind’s absence. Fund draws inspiration from Sara Teasdale’s 1918 poem of the same name, lucidly translating the imagery and themes of the original text into a lyrical film about the regenerative, blissful elements of nature in the aftermath of calamity.

Screening with THE CEMETERY LIGHTENS
(El cementerio se alumbra, Luis Alejandro Yero, Cuba, 2018, 14 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. New York Premiere)
Nocturnal, seemingly random images of Havana conjure up a dark, feverish, and deceptively political work about present-day Cuba.

Sunday, February 24, 4pm

ENIGMA (Ignacio Juricic Merillán, Chile, 2018, 80 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. U.S. Premiere) Buy Tickets Anchored by a potent ensemble cast led by the brilliant Roxana Campos, Ignacio Juricic Merillán’s assured and understated debut feature follows a 54-year-old neighborhood hairdresser who is asked to appear on an episode of TV show about unsolved mysteries dedicated to the violent death of her lesbian daughter in the streets of Santiago a decade earlier. As she decides whether or not to be participate, she confronts her family and their versions of the events that occurred years ago, learning more about who her daughter was. Screening with SOBRE COSAS QUE ME HAN PASADO (José Luis Torres Leiva, Chile, 2018, 15 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. U.S. Premiere) Mundane, fleeting moments turn into film poetry as seen through the eyes of an exceptionally sensitive character (and filmmaker). Based on the book by Chilean writer Marcelo Matthey. Sunday, February 24, 6:30pm

ENIGMA
(Ignacio Juricic Merillán, Chile, 2018, 80 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. U.S. Premiere)
Buy Tickets

Anchored by a potent ensemble cast led by the brilliant Roxana Campos, Ignacio Juricic Merillán’s assured and understated debut feature follows a 54-year-old neighborhood hairdresser who is asked to appear on an episode of TV show about unsolved mysteries dedicated to the violent death of her lesbian daughter in the streets of Santiago a decade earlier. As she decides whether or not to be participate, she confronts her family and their versions of the events that occurred years ago, learning more about who her daughter was.

Screening with SOBRE COSAS QUE ME HAN PASADO
(José Luis Torres Leiva, Chile, 2018, 15 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. U.S. Premiere)
Mundane, fleeting moments turn into film poetry as seen through the eyes of an exceptionally sensitive character (and filmmaker). Based on the book by Chilean writer Marcelo Matthey.

Sunday, February 24, 6:30pm

Centerpiece: OUR TIME ( Nuestro tiempo , Carlos Reygadas, Mexico/France/Germany/Denmark/Sweden, 2018, 173 min. In Spanish and English with English subtitles. New York Premiere) Buy Tickets Gorgeously shot by Diego García, the latest from Mexican director Carlos Reygadas ( Silent Light , Post Tenebras Lux ) is a bold and heartfelt exploration of marriage and intimacy. Starring the director and his wife, Natalia López, as Juan and Esther, the film portrays the life of a couple and their two children on a cattle ranch for fighting bulls. Esther is in charge of running the ranch, while Juan, a world-renowned poet, raises and selects the beasts. Yet when Esther becomes infatuated with an American horse trainer, Juan seems incapable of accepting his own limitations. A Monument Releasing release. Sunday, February 24, 8:30pm

Centerpiece:
OUR TIME
(Nuestro tiempo, Carlos Reygadas, Mexico/France/Germany/Denmark/Sweden, 2018, 173 min. In Spanish and English with English subtitles. New York Premiere)
Buy Tickets

Gorgeously shot by Diego García, the latest from Mexican director Carlos Reygadas (Silent Light, Post Tenebras Lux) is a bold and heartfelt exploration of marriage and intimacy. Starring the director and his wife, Natalia López, as Juan and Esther, the film portrays the life of a couple and their two children on a cattle ranch for fighting bulls. Esther is in charge of running the ranch, while Juan, a world-renowned poet, raises and selects the beasts. Yet when Esther becomes infatuated with an American horse trainer, Juan seems incapable of accepting his own limitations. A Monument Releasing release.

Sunday, February 24, 8:30pm

THE DEAD AND THE OTHERS ( Chuva é cantoria na aldeia dos mortos , Renée Nader Messora and João Salaviza, Brazil/Portugal, 2018, 114 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles. New York Premiere) Q&A Buy Tickets Winner of the Un Certain Regard special jury prize at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, João Salaviza and Renée Nader Messora’s hybrid follows Ihjãc (Henrique Ihjãc Krahô), a 15-year-old indigenous Krahô from the north of Brazil, who runs away from home after he is called to direct his deceased father’s spirit to the village of the dead. Denying his tribal duty as a prospective shaman, Ihjãc instead resides in the nearby town of Itacajá against the advice of his wife (Raene Kôtô Krahô) and community. Shot on 16mm by co-director Nader Messora, The Dead and the Others is a dramatically intriguing, richly textured portrait of grief and the threats facing ancient traditions by modern society. Monday, February 25, 9pm

THE DEAD AND THE OTHERS
(Chuva é cantoria na aldeia dos mortos, Renée Nader Messora and João Salaviza, Brazil/Portugal, 2018, 114 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles. New York Premiere)
Q&A
Buy Tickets

Winner of the Un Certain Regard special jury prize at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, João Salaviza and Renée Nader Messora’s hybrid follows Ihjãc (Henrique Ihjãc Krahô), a 15-year-old indigenous Krahô from the north of Brazil, who runs away from home after he is called to direct his deceased father’s spirit to the village of the dead. Denying his tribal duty as a prospective shaman, Ihjãc instead resides in the nearby town of Itacajá against the advice of his wife (Raene Kôtô Krahô) and community. Shot on 16mm by co-director Nader Messora, The Dead and the Others is a dramatically intriguing, richly textured portrait of grief and the threats facing ancient traditions by modern society.

Monday, February 25, 9pm

A WILD STREAM ( Una corriente salvaje , Nuria Ibáñez, Mexico, 2018, 72 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. U.S. Premiere) Buy Tickets Winner of the Best Mexican Feature Documentary at the Morelia Film Festival, the third feature by Spanish-born director Nuria Ibáñez ( The Tightrope , The Naked Room ) follows Chilo and Omar, who seem to be the only two men on earth. They live on a solitary beach in the desert-like landscape of Baja California and fish to survive. Selected by Film Comment as one of the best undistributed films of 2018, A Wild Stream is an engrossing portrait of the human condition, as well as an unusual and quirky bromance. Screening with THE FORCES ( Las fuerzas , Paola Buontempo, Argentina, 2018, 18 min. In Spanish with English subtitles, North American Premiere) Introduction by Paola Buontempo This brilliant short documentary provides glimpses into the world of horse-racing, following young men and women on track to becoming jockeys. Monday, February 25, 6:30pm

A WILD STREAM
(Una corriente salvaje, Nuria Ibáñez, Mexico, 2018, 72 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. U.S. Premiere)
Buy Tickets

Winner of the Best Mexican Feature Documentary at the Morelia Film Festival, the third feature by Spanish-born director Nuria Ibáñez (The Tightrope, The Naked Room) follows Chilo and Omar, who seem to be the only two men on earth. They live on a solitary beach in the desert-like landscape of Baja California and fish to survive. Selected by Film Comment as one of the best undistributed films of 2018, A Wild Stream is an engrossing portrait of the human condition, as well as an unusual and quirky bromance.

Screening with THE FORCES
(Las fuerzas, Paola Buontempo, Argentina, 2018, 18 min. In Spanish with English subtitles, North American Premiere)
Introduction by Paola Buontempo
This brilliant short documentary provides glimpses into the world of horse-racing, following young men and women on track to becoming jockeys.

Monday, February 25, 6:30pm

‘EDUARDO WILLIAMS SHORTS PROGRAM’ (TRT: 85 min.) Q&A with Eduardo Williams Buy Tickets Argentine filmmaker Eduardo “Teddy” Williams ( The Human Surge ) has been named one of the recipients of the 2019 Lincoln Center Awards for Emerging Artists, which recognizes diverse and exceptional talents across the arts each year. For this edition of Neighboring Scenes, we are pleased to present a selection of Williams’s short films and celebrate the young auteur as he continues to realize his bold, singular vision—featuring the North American premiere of his latest film, Parsi (in collaboration with Mariano Blatt), followed by a post-screening Q&A with Williams. COULD SEE A PUMA ( Pude ver un puma , Argentina, 2011, 18 min. In Spanish with English subtitles) A rooftop accident sends a group of friends wandering across a desolate landscapes until they plunge into the earth’s depths. THAT I’M FALLING? ( Que je tombe tout le temps? , France, 2013, 15 min. In French, English, and Spanish with English subtitles) In Sierra Leone, a young man looking for a seed emerges from the underground, hangs out with his friends and begins a long, digestive trip. I FORGOT! ( Tôi quên rồi , France/Vietnam, 2014, 29 min. In Vietnamese with English subtitles) A group of Vietnamese teenagers stave off boredom by leaping from rooftop to rooftop, window to window, one building to the next. Flaunting Williams’s free, immersive way with street scenes and his protagonists’ death-defying feats, I Forgot! offers a vision as spellbinding as it is terrifying, juxtaposing all-too-familiar everydayness with the sublime beauty of the reckless act. PARSI (Eduardo Williams with Mariano Blatt, Guinea-Bissau/Argentina/Switzerland, 2018, 23 min. In Creole and Spanish with English subtitles. North American Premiere) Commissioned for the 2018 Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement, Williams’s latest is an immersive work exploring the rhythmic, discursive language of Mariano Blatt’s poem “No es” against the perpetually moving people of Guinea-Bissau. Tuesday, February 26, 6:30pm

‘EDUARDO WILLIAMS SHORTS PROGRAM’
(TRT: 85 min.)
Q&A with Eduardo Williams
Buy Tickets

Argentine filmmaker Eduardo “Teddy” Williams (The Human Surge) has been named one of the recipients of the 2019 Lincoln Center Awards for Emerging Artists, which recognizes diverse and exceptional talents across the arts each year. For this edition of Neighboring Scenes, we are pleased to present a selection of Williams’s short films and celebrate the young auteur as he continues to realize his bold, singular vision—featuring the North American premiere of his latest film, Parsi (in collaboration with Mariano Blatt), followed by a post-screening Q&A with Williams.

COULD SEE A PUMA (Pude ver un puma, Argentina, 2011, 18 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
A rooftop accident sends a group of friends wandering across a desolate landscapes until they plunge into the earth’s depths.
THAT I’M FALLING? (Que je tombe tout le temps?, France, 2013, 15 min. In French, English, and Spanish with English subtitles)
In Sierra Leone, a young man looking for a seed emerges from the underground, hangs out with his friends and begins a long, digestive trip.
I FORGOT! (Tôi quên rồi, France/Vietnam, 2014, 29 min. In Vietnamese with English subtitles)
A group of Vietnamese teenagers stave off boredom by leaping from rooftop to rooftop, window to window, one building to the next. Flaunting Williams’s free, immersive way with street scenes and his protagonists’ death-defying feats, I Forgot! offers a vision as spellbinding as it is terrifying, juxtaposing all-too-familiar everydayness with the sublime beauty of the reckless act.
PARSI (Eduardo Williams with Mariano Blatt, Guinea-Bissau/Argentina/Switzerland, 2018, 23 min. In Creole and Spanish with English subtitles. North American Premiere)
Commissioned for the 2018 Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement, Williams’s latest is an immersive work exploring the rhythmic, discursive language of Mariano Blatt’s poem “No es” against the perpetually moving people of Guinea-Bissau.

Tuesday, February 26, 6:30pm

View Event →
Feb
21
to Feb 28

Latin American Films at MoMA's Doc Fortnight 2019

Unknown.jpeg

Doc Fortnight 2019:
MoMA’s International Festival of
Nonfiction Film and Media

February 21 - 28
The Museum of Modern Art

Latin American films co-presented
by Cinema Tropical

MoMA’s annual celebration of innovation in nonfiction film presents a lineup of features and shorts from around the globe, including several world premieres. In these turbulent times, Doc Fortnight remains dedicated to advocating the vision of storytellers who bring us new perspectives on the world, new frameworks through which to measure and balance our own experiences, and new ways to consider truth in an ever-changing world.

For more information visit:
www.moma.org

THE STRANGER: NOTES ON [SELF] EXILE (La extraña: Notas sobre el (auto) exilio, Javier Olivera, Argentina, 2018, 67 min. In Spanish with English subtitles) Buy Tickets Based on the writings of Atahualpa Yupanqui and Marcelo Viñar, this dreamlike documentary addresses what it means to belong to a place. Through philosophical motifs and abstract compositions, La Extraña confronts the potential dissociation with one’s own sense of being. Saturday, February 23, 7pm

THE STRANGER: NOTES ON [SELF] EXILE
(La extraña: Notas sobre el (auto) exilio, Javier Olivera, Argentina, 2018, 67 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Buy Tickets

Based on the writings of Atahualpa Yupanqui and Marcelo Viñar, this dreamlike documentary addresses what it means to belong to a place. Through philosophical motifs and abstract compositions, La Extraña confronts the potential dissociation with one’s own sense of being.

Saturday, February 23, 7pm

TO SEE AGAIN ( Volver a ver, Judith Vélez Aguirre, Peru, 2018, 83 min. In Spanish and Quechua with English subtitles) Buy Tickets Between 1982 and 2000, the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) waged a guerilla war in Peru, becoming one of the most brutal terrorist groups of the 20th century. The conflict began in the Ayacucho region, where many Andean people were victimized and killed. Photographers Vera Lentz, Alejandro Balaguer, and Oscar Medrano managed to capture the horror and pain this war caused—and now, years later, they revisit the subjects and locales captured in their photos. Volver a ver tells a story that is not often told, about the tragedies that took place in Peru for nearly two decades, using the lens of art to reveal memories that question an official history that elides the indigenous contribution to the peace process. Saturday, February 23, 7:30pm — Q&A with filmmaker

TO SEE AGAIN
(Volver a ver, Judith Vélez Aguirre, Peru, 2018, 83 min. In Spanish and Quechua with English subtitles)
Buy Tickets

Between 1982 and 2000, the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) waged a guerilla war in Peru, becoming one of the most brutal terrorist groups of the 20th century. The conflict began in the Ayacucho region, where many Andean people were victimized and killed. Photographers Vera Lentz, Alejandro Balaguer, and Oscar Medrano managed to capture the horror and pain this war caused—and now, years later, they revisit the subjects and locales captured in their photos. Volver a ver tells a story that is not often told, about the tragedies that took place in Peru for nearly two decades, using the lens of art to reveal memories that question an official history that elides the indigenous contribution to the peace process.

Saturday, February 23, 7:30pm — Q&A with filmmaker

THEATRE OF WAR ( Teatro de guerra , Lola Arias, Argentina/Spain, 2018, 82 min. In English and Spanish with English subtitles) Buy Tickets Since 1833, jurisdiction over the Falkland/Malvinas Islands has been the source of major controversy—so much so that in 1982, this ongoing debate resulted in war. Over the course of three months nearly 1,000 British and Argentine soldiers lost their lives in a war for sovereignty. Blurring the lines between reality and fiction, this unorthodox documentary focuses on the damaging effects the Falklands War had on six of its soldiers. Through the use of theatrical performance, reenactment, music, and storytelling, Theatre of War revisits a kind of universal turmoil. Sunday, February 24, 7:30pm and Tuesday, February 26, 4pm

THEATRE OF WAR
(Teatro de guerra, Lola Arias, Argentina/Spain, 2018, 82 min. In English and Spanish with English subtitles)
Buy Tickets


Since 1833, jurisdiction over the Falkland/Malvinas Islands has been the source of major controversy—so much so that in 1982, this ongoing debate resulted in war. Over the course of three months nearly 1,000 British and Argentine soldiers lost their lives in a war for sovereignty. Blurring the lines between reality and fiction, this unorthodox documentary focuses on the damaging effects the Falklands War had on six of its soldiers. Through the use of theatrical performance, reenactment, music, and storytelling, Theatre of War revisits a kind of universal turmoil.

Sunday, February 24, 7:30pm and Tuesday, February 26, 4pm

'DOC FORTNIGHT SHORTS PROGRAM: THE PRESENCE OF PLACE' Buy Tickets THE OFFERING (Guille Isa, Bill Silva, Peru, 2018, 7 min. In Quechua and Spanish with English subtitles) In the highlands of Peru, seekers of strength and guidance perform an ancient ritual of dance and music as an offering to the spirits. A SINGULAR GARDEN (Monica Klemz, Brazil, 2017, 16 min.) Past and present meet in this depiction of a public park in Rio de Janeiro that once hosted the formal affairs of the Presidential Palace. TAKEHARA . (Jarot Mansilla, Peru, 2017, 10 min.) In a greenhouse in the Lima desert, Mr. Takehara has been perfecting a bonsai oasis for 20 years. A Doc Fortnight/Cinema Tropical collaboration HABLANDO CON DIOS (Glenda León, Cuba/Spain, 2018, 5 min.) In the pews of an ornately decorated Baroque church, congregants worship a new-age God that challenges the meaning of Higher Power. Saturday, February 23, 4pm — Q&A with directors

'DOC FORTNIGHT SHORTS PROGRAM: THE PRESENCE OF PLACE'
Buy Tickets

THE OFFERING (Guille Isa, Bill Silva, Peru, 2018, 7 min. In Quechua and Spanish with English subtitles)
In the highlands of Peru, seekers of strength and guidance perform an ancient ritual of dance and music as an offering to the spirits.

A SINGULAR GARDEN (Monica Klemz, Brazil, 2017, 16 min.)
Past and present meet in this depiction of a public park in Rio de Janeiro that once hosted the formal affairs of the Presidential Palace.

TAKEHARA. (Jarot Mansilla, Peru, 2017, 10 min.)
In a greenhouse in the Lima desert, Mr. Takehara has been perfecting a bonsai oasis for 20 years. A Doc Fortnight/Cinema Tropical collaboration

HABLANDO CON DIOS (Glenda León, Cuba/Spain, 2018, 5 min.)
In the pews of an ornately decorated Baroque church, congregants worship a new-age God that challenges the meaning of Higher Power.

Saturday, February 23, 4pm — Q&A with directors

View Event →
Feb
10
to Feb 11

'Spotlight on Mexico: Rodrigo Reyes'

lupe-under-sun-02.jpg

Spotlight on Mexico With Filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes:
Colonization, Borders & Migration’

A Brooklyn Film Festival Exchange event co-presented with Cinema Tropical.

$10 ticket price

7pm Doors
7:10pm 5 minute intro
7:20pm screening, (approximately 101 minutes total material), 5 minutes for brief intro between feature and second part.
9-9:45pm Q&A

Filmmaker in attendance for Q&A along with special guests.


Works to be presented:
Lupe Under the Sun / Lupe bajo el sol (78 min., 2016) Winner Best Film and Best Narrative Feature, Brooklyn film fest.
Lupe Under the Sun is a neorealist film following an aging migrant worker living in California, who longs to return to Mexico before it is too late. Featuring a cast of nonprofessional actors, real farmworkers and authentic locations, Lupe Under the Sun tackles issues of depression, homesickness and the immigrant myth of the American Dream. Long estranged from his family in Michoacán, migrant laborer Lupe finds relief from the backbreaking work of harvesting peaches in California’s Central Valley through camaraderie and a quiet love affair with fellow immigrant Gloria. Soon the stability of his daily routine begins to crack under the weight of a life scarred with regret and missed opportunities. Filmed in a classic neorealist style, director Rodrigo Reyes’s deeply moving debut fiction feature, inspired by the life of his own grandfather, is at once an intimately drawn meditation on life’s missed chances and a tale of the universal struggles of immigrants. Winner of Film Independent’s Canon Filmmaker Award, Reyes’s unforgettable film heralds the arrival of an important new voice in American cinema.

Sansón an Me (feature film in progress, 12 min. teaser)
Director Rodrigo Reyes works as a Spanish Criminal Interpreter. After befriending one of his clients, a young Latino defendant during a gang-related murder trial, Rodrigo uses this unique connection to craft a heartbreaking, multi-layered story about how the failures of immigration and opportunity intersect with the prison pipeline.

499 Years (feature film in progress, 8 min. teaser)
2019 marks five centuries since Cortez first set foot in the Aztec Empire. The film retraces the route of the Spanish from Veracruz to Mexico City, weaving the story of a fictional, quixotic Conquistador with the poignant stories of everyday people grappling with a wave of brutal violence that is part-and-parcel of Mexico’s colonial legacy.

Purgatorio (2013 trailer 3 min. of feature length film)
Reyes’ provocative essay film re-imagines the Mexico/U.S. border as a mythical place comparable to Dante’s purgatory. Leaving politics aside, he takes a fresh look at the brutal beauty of the border and the people caught in its spell.

Rodrigo Reyes is an award-winning, Mexican-American filmmaker whose films Purgatorio: A Journey Into the Heart of the Border and Lupe Under the Sun have screened in festivals around the world, such as the BFI London Film Festival, Guadalajara International Film Festival and Documentary Fortnight at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, as well as being selected as a Season Premiere for America ReFramed. His work has garnered rave reviews in the New York Times, Variety and other media outlets, as well as multiple awards, including a Special Jury Award at the LA Film Festival. Named one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film by Filmmaker Magazine, he is a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow at MacDowell Colony and a recipient of the National Mediamaker Fellowship from the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC). His work has received the support of Tribeca Film Institute, Sundance Institute, California Humanities Council Film Independent, Pacific Pioneer Fund, IFP Narrative and Documentary Labs, and the Mexican Film Institute (IMCINE). He also works in Oakland as a Spanish language court interpreter in criminal and civil proceedings.

View Event →
Feb
7
7:15 PM19:15

New York Premiere of THE ENDLESS FILM

La-película-infinita-3.jpg

THE ENDLESS FILM / LA PELÍCULA INFINITA
(Leandro Listorti, Argentina, 2018, 54 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)

New York Premiere!

The Endless Film stands as a contemporary cinematic Frankenstein. Made from different fragments of unfinished, abandoned, or unrealized Argentine films, this film-essay tells the story of a parallel history of cinema. An endless film is a film that has no end, a film that has not reached its destiny. From this limbo, Listorti gathers these orphan images and silenced sounds and finds a new opportunity to screen their stories.

Not only a filmmaker, Listorti nurtures his talented film practice with his experience as an archivist in the film museum Pablo Hickens Ducros in Buenos Aires. The Endless Film is composed of the remains of such films as El eternauta by Hugo Gil (1968); La neutrónica explotó en Burzaco by Alejandro Agresti (1984); Zama by Nicolás Sarquís (1984); Sistema español by Martín Rejtman (1988); and El ocio by Mariano Llinás and Agustín Mendilaharzu (1999); among others. With the voices of musician and actress Rosario Bléfari and filmmaker and writer Edgardo Cozarinsky, The Endless Film proposes itself as a negative journey through creation, memory, and loneliness.

“In a country where the remains are of fundamental importance in understanding the past, The Endless Film offers a window to forgotten memories, and invites the viewer to evaluate its own culture and identity.” –Rotterdam Film Festival

 
 
View Event →
Feb
1
to Feb 3

2019 Cinema Tropical Festival

  • Museum of the Moving Image (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS
CTFestival19.jpg

2019 CINEMA TROPICAL FESTIVAL

February 1–3, 2019

 

Museum of the Moving Image and Cinema Tropical 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 filmmake r Buy Tickets 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

THE SENTENCE
(Rudy Valdez, USA, 2018, 85 min. In English) — Winner, Best U.S. Latino Film
Q&A with the filmmaker
Buy Tickets

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 Buy Tickets 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

BARONESA
(Juliana Antunes, Brazil, 2017, 71 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles) — Winner, Best Documentary
Buy Tickets

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 Co-presented by Reimagine End of Life . Buy Tickets 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

306 HOLLYWOOD
(Elan and Jonathan Bogarín, USA, 2018, 94 min. In English) — Special Mention, Best U.S. Latino Film
Q&A with the filmmakers
Co-presented by Reimagine End of Life.

Buy Tickets

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 Buy Tickets 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

ZAMA
( Lucrecia Martel, Argentina/Brazil/Spain/France/Netherlands/Mexico/Portugal/USA, 2017, 115 mins. In Spanish with English subtitles) — Winner, Best Film
Buy Tickets

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 Buy Tickets 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

GOOD MANNERS
(As Boas Maneiras, Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra, Brazil, 2017, 135 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles) — Winner, Best Director
Buy Tickets

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

View Event →
Jan
24
to Feb 3

World Premiere of Hari Sama's THIS IS NOT BERLIN at Sundance

19767-1-1100.jpg

“As Mexico anticipates the 1986 World Cup, 17-year-old Carlos is less interested in soccer and more interested in listening to his record collection and admiring Rita, the older sister of his best friend, Gera. Carlos and Gera’s suburban, juvenile monotony is interrupted when Rita’s goth band introduces them to an underground nightclub—the Azteca. The teens are instantly seduced by the Azteca’s regulars and their exhilarating world of performance art, sexual fluidity, and prescription drugs. Carlos and Gera’s friendship is tested as the two explore new identities and face the consequences of adult decisions.

Infused with a post-punk soundtrack and brimming with enchanting performances from a promising young cast, This is not Berlin delivers an energetic portrait of a clandestine sanctuary propelled by youth fleeing the societal repression of their time. A unique take on adolescent insecurities, awakenings, and maturing, writer/director Hari Sama elevates the classic coming-of-age story in fresh and unexpected ways.” — Sundance Film Festival

Sundance Screenings
Friday, January 25, 2:30pm at Prospector Square Theatre (World Premiere + Press Line)
Saturday, January 26, 7pm at Redstone Cinema 2
Monday, January 28, 9pm at Sundance Mountain Resort Screening Room
Tuesday, January 29, 6pm at Broadway Centre Cinema 6, (Salt Lake City)
Thursday, January 31, 5:45pm at Library Center Theatre
Friday, February 1st 9:45am at Holiday Village Cinema 4

View Event →
Jan
17
7:15 PM19:15

New York Premiere of LAS OLAS / THE WAVES

LasOlas1.jpg

THE WAVES / LAS OLAS
Directed by Adrián Biniez
(Uruguay/Argentina, In Spanish with English subtitles, 2017, 88 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)

New York Premiere!

The third feature film by Argentine-born, Uruguay-based filmmaker Adrián Biniez (Gigante, El Cinco) is a playful, imaginative, and existentialist time-traveling tale about a man’s misadventures. Exhausted after leaving work, Alfonso, a man in his late thirties, goes to the beach and dives into the sea. Coming to the surface, he finds himself on another beach, in another time. His parents are waiting for him, calling to him from the water’s edge.

Alfonso sees and understands everything as an adult, even if they treat him like an 11 year old. So begins a fantastic, achronological voyage through the various holidays of his life, as he comes face to face with past girlfriends, teenage and childhood pals, his daughter, and his own loneliness.

This screening is part of: If You Can Screen It There: Premiering Contemporary Latin American Cinema

View Event →
Jan
13
2:00 PM14:00

'First Look 2019' Presents 'Going Beyond: New Films from Ambulante Más Allá'

MruMD57g_550x238-detail-main.jpg

First Look 2019 Presents
Going Beyond: New Films from Ambulante Más Allá

An offshoot of the annual Ambulante traveling film festival, Ambulante Más Allá, (a.k.a. Ambulante Beyond) is a program for documentary production aiming to train new filmmakers coming from different corners of Mexico and Central America who have limited access to the tools needed to share their stories with a wide audience. Through workshops, Ambulante Más Allá promotes independent filmmaking to get these stories to be told from within a community’s own cultural and aesthetic perspective, not arising from the imposition of conventional film parameters. Ambulante allows communities to recover and strengthen their identity, claim their rights, as well as break stereotypes. These films represent a selection of recent works by Ambulante filmmakers, presented by Programming Director Meghan Monsour. All New York premieres.

Weck: Words Are My Voice
(Weck: la palabra es mi voz, Aldo Arellanes Antonio. Mexico. 2018, 24 min. In Spanish with English subtitles.)
Weck, an urban artist, decides to organize Rap Awareness—an event he hopes will reclaim hip-hop culture in Pinotepa Nacional, Oaxaca. Weck and his friends face many challenges as they work to fulfill their dreams in a town mostly indifferent to their need for creative expression.

The Sound of Waves 
(El sonar de las olas, Vanessa Ishel Castillo Ortega. Mexico. 2018, 15 mins. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Elida is an enthusiastic teenager with many passions, including playing the violin and spending time with her friends on the beach. But what she really loves is surfing—she’s known to her friends as “Candy Surfer.” She surfs in defiance of her mother, who considers it too dangerous; not only because Elida is fifteen, but because she is missing her right hand.

Caress 
Caricia). Dir. David Montes Bernal. Mexico. 2016, 20 mins. In Spanish with English subtitles. Caricia, a trans woman from the Costa Chica region in Guerrero, never thought shewould become a hairdresser. But after overcoming a relationship with a violent man, Caricia decided to go back to her hometown and start her own business. La Paloma de Paris (Paris’s Dove) is a modest—yet liberating—beauty parlor, where other trans women can feel at ease. 

Magda, or the Fish Folk 
Magda o el pueblo de los pescados). Dir. Dahlia Sosa Hernandez, Xareni Zafra Gatica. Mexico. 2016, 30 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. Magda, a 23-year-old midwife trainee, follows a message she received in her dreams: helping to combat the violence that surrounds the women of her town, San Mateo del Mar, a fishing community. 

View Event →
Dec
18
7:15 PM19:15

New York Premiere of LOS TERRITORIOS

THE TERRITORIES / LOS TERRITORIOS
(Iván Granovsky, Argentina/Brazil, 2017, 93 min. In Spanish, English, Arabic, and Basque with English subtitles)
New York Premiere

After the attack on Charlie Hebdo, Iván, a young film producer and self-proclaimed “frivolous” son of a prominent Argentine journalist, sets off on a journey to sites of contemporary geopolitical conflict. It is no easy undertaking. Determining where the frontline ends and this wannabe war correspondent’s ego trip begins proves even more difficult. It’s seemingly a miracle that this film even exists. As the director and protagonist Iván Granovsky relates with a sense of self-mockery, his three previous attempts to make a film turned into fiascos, so he decided to follow in the footsteps of his father. But from the refugee crisis in Greece to the less-democratic Brazil, from the Basque Country to Jerusalem, Granovsky is always too late, too early, in the wrong place, or asking clumsy questions. The Territories is a coming-of-age fiction nestled inside a geopolitical documentary.

Tuesday, December 18, 7:15pm

 
 
View Event →
Dec
18
7:00 PM19:00

New York Premiere of TORQUATO NETO: EVERY HOUR OF THE END

maxresdefault.jpg

TORQUATO NETO - TODAS AS HORAS DO FIM  / TORQUATO NETO - EVERY HOUR OF THE END
(Eduardo Ades, Marcus Fernando, Brazil, 2017, 88 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles) 

Buy Tickets

Torquato Neto (1944-1972) lived ruptures passionately. Engaged on multiple fronts - in film, music, and journalism - the poet from the far-northeastern state of Piauí partook faithfully in the revolution that changed the course of Brazilian culture in the 1960s and 70s. Neto was one of the most active thinkers and lyricists of the Tropicália movement, a partner of Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso and Jards Macalé. Through producing and partaking in marginal art forms, Neto radicalized his performances and cultural criticisms alongside such figures of Brazil’s counter-culture as Waly Salomão, Ivan Cardoso, and Hélio Oiticica. Finally, he ruptured with his own life - committing suicide on his twenty-eight birthday. 

 
 


 
NewBrazilianConsulateLogo.png

Sponsored by the Consulate General of Brazil in New York.

 
View Event →
Dec
8
5:00 PM17:00

Reverse Shot 15 Filmmakers on the Rise: Adirley Queirós

Once-There-Was-Brazilia-1600x900-c-default.jpg

As part of Reverse Shot 15: Filmmakers on the Rise, this double-feature program pairs two films by Brazilian director Adirley Queirós.   

WHITE OUT, BLACK IN
(Adirley Queirós. 2014, 90 mins. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
With Marquim do Tropa, Dilmar Durães.
Buy Tickets

One night in 1986, a baile funk club in a poorer district adjacent to Brazil’s capital city was raided by police and forcibly shut down. White patrons of the predominantly black club were allowed to exit, and the police assaulted those who remained. Adirley Queirós investigates this event by boldly layering sci-fi tropes on top of documentary evidence in the form of a time traveler from 2075 sent to follow two real-life men crippled by the attack. 
Saturday, December 8, 5pm


ONCE THERE WAS BRASILIA
(Adirley Queirós. 2017, 100 mins. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
With Wellington Abreu, Andreia Vieira.
Buy Tickets

In Once There Was Brasilia, Queirós maintains a toehold in nonfiction filmmaking, but in most other respects rockets off into the galactic cinematic beyond. Where his previous film, White Out, Black In, might be broadly categorized as a docu-fiction (albeit of a mutated strand), Once There Was Brasilia is a sci-fi epic about assassins from space and the impeachment of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, all executed with fantastic resourcefulness on a shoestring budget.
Saturday, December 8, 6:30pm


 
NewBrazilianConsulateLogo.png

Sponsored by the Consulate General of Brazil in New York.

 


View Event →
Nov
29
7:30 PM19:30

Proyector Presents WE ARE ALWAYS WALKING

ambulante-1.jpg

SIEMPRE ANDAMOS CAMINANDO / WE ARE ALWAYS WALKING
(Dinazar Urbina, Mexico, 2017, 62 min. In Spanish and Chatino with English subtitles)

We’re thrilled to be co-presenting the NYC premiere of Siempre andamos caminando / We Are Always Walking with UnionDocs and Ambulante and as a part of our ongoing collaboration with Proyector, a showcase of contemporary independent Mexican films.

We Are Always Walking is a film about the trips undertaken to the coast by people of Santa Cruz Zenzontepec—a chatino municipality in Oaxaca’s Sierra Sur— in order to work, mainly, as farmers or traders. The journey to Santa Rosa de Lima, a small coastal town whose main income comes from agriculture and commerce, takes seven hours by car. Julia, a 28 years old woman from Cofradía, Zenzontepec, was fifteen the first time she made the trip. She enjoys more living at the coast rather than at the sierra.

At a very young age, Catalina migrated from Xochistlahuaca and started working as a housekeeper. Nowadays, she sells food and feels like she belongs more in Santa Rosa than her birthplace. Alberta, a 21 years old woman also from Cofradía, isa single mom who travels, carrying her baby, to work.

View Event →
Nov
27
to Nov 28

Indocumentales Presents EN EL SÉPTIMO DÍA

EnelSeptimoDia1.jpg

EN EL SÉPTIMO DÍA
(Jim McKay, USA, 2018, 92 min. In Spanish and English with English subtitles)

En El Séptimo Día is a fiction feature following a group of undocumented immigrants living in Sunset Park, Brooklyn over the course of seven days. Bicycle delivery guys, construction workers, dishwashers, deli workers, and cotton candy vendors, they work long hours six days a week and then savor their day of rest on Sundays on the soccer fields of Sunset Park. José, a bicycle delivery worker, is the team's captain - young, talented, hardworking and responsible. When José's team makes it to the finals, he and his teammates are thrilled. But his boss throws a wrench into the celebration when he tells José he has to work on Sunday, the day of the finals.

José tries to reason with his boss or replace himself, but his efforts fail. If he doesn't work on Sunday, his job and his future will be on the line. But if he doesn't stand up for himself and his teammates, his dignity will be crushed. Shot in the neighborhoods of Sunset Park, Park Slope, and Gowanus, En el Séptimo Día is a humane, sensitive, and humorous window into a world rarely seen. The film’s impact is made quietly, with restraint and respect for the individual experiences, everyday challenges, and small triumphs of its characters.

Post-screening discussion with Director Jim McKay, cast member Genoel Ramírez, and New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) Engagement Manager, Kemah George. Moderated by World Council of Peoples for the United Nations (WCPUN) Executive Director, Shamina de Gonzaga. Opening remarks by Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA) Commissioner Bitta Mostofi.

 
 
View Event →
Nov
26
7:00 PM19:00

Flaherty NYC Presents KINGS OF NOWHERE

Kings of Nowhere 1 copy.jpg

‘FLAHERTY NYC: AFTERMATH’
Programmed by Dessane Lopez Cassell

Co-presented with Cinema Tropical

Through two radically different documentaries, the Mexico City-based filmmaker Betzabé Garcia creates a multi-layered record of the day-to-day in a once prosperous town in Mexico’s Sinaloa state. Flooded by the careless construction of a government damn, and abandoned by all but a few small families, these films examine the state of life in a landscape haunted by rising waters and nightly terrors from unseen intruders.

UNSILENCED
(Betzabé Garcia, Mexico, 2016, 10 min. In Spanish with Engish subtitles)

Atilano Román Tirado, leader of the Displaced Persons of Picachos Movement, murdered on-air by gunmen inside a radio station, reflects on the tragedy suffered by the residents of the towns flooded by the dam, the current climate of censorship and repression in Mexico, as well as the importance of developing public consciousness to combat injustices.

KINGS OF NOWHERE
(Betzabé Garcia, Mexico, 2015, 83 min. In Spanish with English subitltes)

Three families live in a village partially submerged by water in Northwestern Mexico. Despite their loneliness and fear, they refuse to leave.

Filmmaker Betzabé Garcia in person. Discussion moderated by independent curator and archivist Almudena Escobar López.

View Event →
Nov
12
7:00 PM19:00

Flaherty NYC Presents TÚ Y YO

TU-Y-YO_4-1024x576.jpg

‘FLAHERTY NYC: AFTERMATH’
Programmed by Dessane Lopez Cassell

Co-presented with Cinema Tropical

The filmmaking duo behind the Dominican Republic-based Faula Films, Natalia Cabral and Oriol Estrada make films that speak to the sharp contrasts and lingering societal tensions of life in the often romanticized Caribbean. An understated meditation on the ever-present dynamics of race and class in the Dominican Republic, Tú y Yo offers a portrait of two individuals – an old widow and her young maid – inextricably bound to each other. Similarly, Lejos presents a day in the life of a young woman desperate to escape her mundane environment and obligations.

LEJOS
(Oriol Estrada, 2013, 10 min.)
Lidia, a woman who lives a monotonous life in the Cuban countryside, decides one day to do something different.

TÚ Y YO 
(You and Me, Natalia Cabral and Oriol Estrada, Dominican Republic/Spain, 2014, 85 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)

The Mrs., a 70-year-old widow, and Aridia, her young maid, live in isolation in a house in Santo Domingo where they have domestic chores to keep them occupied. Their relationship is tense, but at the end of the day, they know they only have each other.

Filmmakers Natalia Cabral and Oriol Estrada in person for a discussion moderated by Rachell Morillo, Senior Coordinator, Public Programs & Community Engagement at The Studio Museum in Harlem.

View Event →
Nov
8
7:30 PM19:30

Special Screening of EL GRITO

IMG_8333.jpg

Frozen Revolutions: EL GRITO

(Leobardo López Aretche, Mexico, 1968-1970, 100 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)

As part of Frozen Revolutions, a series that revisits the documentation of social movements from the year 1968, we turn to the Olympics. To American eyes, the defining image of the Mexico City Olympics is probably John Dominis’ photograph of Gold and Bronze Medal winners Tommie Smith and John Carlos standing at the world’s attention, their fists raised from the podium. Yet for Mexicans it’s impossible to acknowledge the 1968 Summer Olympics without the Tlatelolco Massacre just days before the games began, wherein a squabble between graffitists and cops escalated into a massive confrontation between student activists and the Mexican military.

Small-scale protests, initially sparked by a feud between vocational schools in Mexico City, escalated into multiple weeks of nonviolent occupation: students and faculty alike from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) were unified in their protests against the repressive regime of then-president Díaz Ordaz. Specifically, the student and his ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), widely seen as corrupt for its accommodation of United States military and financial support ahead of the Games. The students issued statements alleging that the myth of Mexico as “a model for other underdeveloped countries to follow has been destroyed by the government forces themselves.”

A cluster of students armed with 16mm cameras began to capture the unfolding action in the streets, including a 24 year old film student named Leobardo López Aretche. Although its shooting was an open-ended and collaborative effort, López took control of the editing process to shape what would become the finished film: El Grito (The Scream). It tracks the escalation of the rallies into a full-bore standoff between demonstrators and anti-riot granderos, allegedly paid in cash per arrest, who put down an occupation of the nearby National Politechnical Institute. While the protests had grown to include all sections of progressive society (including middle-class citydwellers, labor activists, neighbors, faculty and students alike) in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, the military ended up surrounding the protests in a “pincer movement” on October 2nd, opening fire with Ordaz’ permission. In the end, over 1300 people were arrested, and 400 protesters were killed.

Beyond the ensuing nationwide scandal, Tlatelolco is a critical event in public memory in Mexico – but was not depicted onscreen for over 20 years until Jorge Fons’ dramatization Rojo Amanecer in 1991. El Grito is the only feature-length work credited to López, who committed suicide two years later. (Also of interest is the contribution of journalist Oriana Fallaci, then covering the student movement, as “screenwriter”.) The film is considered the only primary-source documentary about the massacre, equal parts riveting tactical journalism and a bleak indictment of the repression undertaken by the PRI (whose control of Mexico’s government went uninterrupted from 1929 to 2000.) After decades spent as a suppressed, secret film, UNAM is now distributing it in a clean digital restoration. This will be the first screening of the film in the United States and the New York City premiere, fresh off a screening at the 2018 Viennale.

Thursday, November 8, 7:30pm
UnionDocs
322 Union Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
https://uniondocs.org/event/2018-11-08-el-grito/

View Event →
Nov
8
to Nov 15

Latino Films at DOC NYC

Im-Leaving-Now_KEY_IMAGE.jpg

DOC NYC

November 8 -15
IFC Center, SVA Theater and Cinépolis Chelsea

Films Co-Presented by Cinema Tropical

DECADE OF FIRE (Vivian Vazquez, Gretchen Hildebran, USA, 72 min. In English and Spanish with English subtitles. World premiere) Buy Tickets In the 1970s, the Bronx was on fire. Left unprotected by the city government, nearly a half-million people were displaced as their close-knit, multiethnic neighborhood burned, reducing the community to rubble. While insidious government policies caused the devastation, Black and Latino residents bore the blame. In this story of hope and resistance, Bronx native Vivian Vazquez exposes the truth about the borough’s sordid history and reveals how her embattled and maligned community chose to resist, remain and rebuild. Expected to Attend: Directors Vivian Vazquez, Gretchen Hildebran; producers Neyda Martinez, Julia Steele Allen; cinematographer Eddie Martinez; consulting producer Yoruba Richen; graphic designer David Tecson; composer Arturo Ortiz; Moderator, Chi-hui Yang, JustFilms | Ford Foundation Saturday, November 10, 2018, 4:15pm at the SVA Theatre

DECADE OF FIRE
(Vivian Vazquez, Gretchen Hildebran, USA, 72 min. In English and Spanish with English subtitles. World premiere)
Buy Tickets

In the 1970s, the Bronx was on fire. Left unprotected by the city government, nearly a half-million people were displaced as their close-knit, multiethnic neighborhood burned, reducing the community to rubble. While insidious government policies caused the devastation, Black and Latino residents bore the blame. In this story of hope and resistance, Bronx native Vivian Vazquez exposes the truth about the borough’s sordid history and reveals how her embattled and maligned community chose to resist, remain and rebuild.
Expected to Attend: Directors Vivian Vazquez, Gretchen Hildebran; producers Neyda Martinez, Julia Steele Allen; cinematographer Eddie Martinez; consulting producer Yoruba Richen; graphic designer David Tecson; composer Arturo Ortiz; Moderator, Chi-hui Yang, JustFilms | Ford Foundation

Saturday, November 10, 2018, 4:15pm at the SVA Theatre

WITKIN & WITKIN (Trisha Ziff, Mexico, 2017, 93 min. In Spanish and English with English subtitles. New York premiere) Buy Tickets Joel-Peter Witkin is a celebrated photographer, known for dark tableaux full of disturbing images. His identical twin brother Jerome is an equally acclaimed figurative painter, whose work explores sociohistorical themes. These two gifted artists rarely communicate with one another, maintaining separate lives despite their shared upbringing. Told almost entirely by the women in their lives, Trisha Ziff’s intimate film explores themes of love, loss and distance, while showcasing the Witkins’ fascinating bodies of work. When they reunite for their first-ever joint exhibition, will the brothers’ artistic collaboration change their perspectives on their own – or each other’s – work and lives? Expected to Attend: Director Trisha Ziff Sun, November 11, 7:15pm at Cinépolis Chelsea

WITKIN & WITKIN
(Trisha Ziff, Mexico, 2017, 93 min. In Spanish and English with English subtitles. New York premiere)
Buy Tickets

Joel-Peter Witkin is a celebrated photographer, known for dark tableaux full of disturbing images. His identical twin brother Jerome is an equally acclaimed figurative painter, whose work explores sociohistorical themes. These two gifted artists rarely communicate with one another, maintaining separate lives despite their shared upbringing. Told almost entirely by the women in their lives, Trisha Ziff’s intimate film explores themes of love, loss and distance, while showcasing the Witkins’ fascinating bodies of work. When they reunite for their first-ever joint exhibition, will the brothers’ artistic collaboration change their perspectives on their own – or each other’s – work and lives?
Expected to Attend: Director Trisha Ziff

Sun, November 11, 7:15pm at Cinépolis Chelsea

I'M LEAVING NOW (USA/Mexico) ( Ya me voy , Lindsey Cordero and Armando Croda, USA/Mexico, 2018, U.S. premiere) Buy Tickets Felipe, an undocumented immigrant, combs the streets of New York City collecting cans to survive on the margins of society. After 16 years of hard living, he makes plans to return to Mexico but discovers his family has squandered his money and are in debt. Felipe must decide how much more he can sacrifice for a family he no longer knows. I’m Leaving Now ( Ya me voy ) deftly explores the shifting of one’s allegiances through time and distance, and the delusions we tell ourselves to make peace with fate. Felipe, an undocumented immigrant in NYC who has long struggled to support his family in Mexico, faces the limits of self-sacrifice. Expected to Attend: Director/Producer Lindsey Cordero, Director/Producer/Editor Armando Croda; writer/producer Josh Alexander; co-producer Xavier Velasco, film subjects. Sunday, November 11, 9:15pm at the IFC Center

I'M LEAVING NOW (USA/Mexico)
(Ya me voy, Lindsey Cordero and Armando Croda, USA/Mexico, 2018, U.S. premiere)
Buy Tickets

Felipe, an undocumented immigrant, combs the streets of New York City collecting cans to survive on the margins of society. After 16 years of hard living, he makes plans to return to Mexico but discovers his family has squandered his money and are in debt. Felipe must decide how much more he can sacrifice for a family he no longer knows. I’m Leaving Now (Ya me voy) deftly explores the shifting of one’s allegiances through time and distance, and the delusions we tell ourselves to make peace with fate.
Felipe, an undocumented immigrant in NYC who has long struggled to support his family in Mexico, faces the limits of self-sacrifice.
Expected to Attend: Director/Producer Lindsey Cordero, Director/Producer/Editor Armando Croda; writer/producer Josh Alexander; co-producer Xavier Velasco, film subjects.

Sunday, November 11, 9:15pm at the IFC Center

PATRIMONIO (Lisa F. Jackson, Sarah Teale, USA/Mexico. New York premiere) Buy Tickets In Baja, Mexico, a multinational developer plans to build an extensive wellness oasis, which will include nearly 4,500 homes and create a footprint that will engulf the local fishing community of Todos Santos. Faced with the encroachment of their natural resources, depletion of the local ecology and severe pollution, the fishermen band together to fight the developer and government agencies that enable these extreme resorts. Led by an inspiring young attorney, can this humble group succeed in stopping this unsustainable development and preserve their way of life? Expected to Attend: Director/Producers Sarah Teale, Lisa F. Jackson; film subjects John Moreno, Quirino Cota, Elena Moreno. Tuesday, November 13, 5:15pm at the IFC Center Wednesday, November 14, 10:15am at the IFC Center

PATRIMONIO
(Lisa F. Jackson, Sarah Teale, USA/Mexico. New York premiere)
Buy Tickets

In Baja, Mexico, a multinational developer plans to build an extensive wellness oasis, which will include nearly 4,500 homes and create a footprint that will engulf the local fishing community of Todos Santos. Faced with the encroachment of their natural resources, depletion of the local ecology and severe pollution, the fishermen band together to fight the developer and government agencies that enable these extreme resorts. Led by an inspiring young attorney, can this humble group succeed in stopping this unsustainable development and preserve their way of life?
Expected to Attend: Director/Producers Sarah Teale, Lisa F. Jackson; film subjects John Moreno, Quirino Cota, Elena Moreno.

Tuesday, November 13, 5:15pm at the IFC Center
Wednesday, November 14, 10:15am at the IFC Center

HARVEST SEASON (Bernardo Ruiz, USA, 2018, 83 min. In Spanish and English with English subtitles. New York premiere) Buy Tickets Lush and luxurious, California’s Napa and Sonoma Valleys are known for their top-notch wine making. The unsung heroes of the industry are the vineyard workers and small producers, who lovingly oversee all aspects of the wine-making process, from vine to vintage. Unfolding over the course of one of the most dramatic harvests in history, Bernardo Ruiz’s film follows three people whose lives are rooted in wine making, immersing the audience in the challenging and unpredictable process. Expected to Attend: Director Bernardo Ruiz; associate producer Andrea Cordoba; cinematographer Victor Tadashi Suarez; editor Fiona Otway Tuesday, November 13, 10:30am at the IFC Center Thursday, November 15, 5pm at the IFC Center

HARVEST SEASON
(Bernardo Ruiz, USA, 2018, 83 min. In Spanish and English with English subtitles. New York premiere)
Buy Tickets

Lush and luxurious, California’s Napa and Sonoma Valleys are known for their top-notch wine making. The unsung heroes of the industry are the vineyard workers and small producers, who lovingly oversee all aspects of the wine-making process, from vine to vintage. Unfolding over the course of one of the most dramatic harvests in history, Bernardo Ruiz’s film follows three people whose lives are rooted in wine making, immersing the audience in the challenging and unpredictable process.
Expected to Attend: Director Bernardo Ruiz; associate producer Andrea Cordoba; cinematographer Victor Tadashi Suarez; editor Fiona Otway

Tuesday, November 13, 10:30am at the IFC Center
Thursday, November 15, 5pm at the IFC Center

THE GREAT MOTHER (Dave LaMattina & Chad Walker, USA, 2018, 93 min. In English and Spanish with English subtitles) Buy Tickets WORLD PREMIERE Nora Sandigo has more than 2,000 kids. The fierce immigration activist serves as the legal guardian for US-born children of undocumented immigrants who have been deported. Were it not for her, many would be forced into the foster care system, keeping them legally separated from their parents. The Great Mother profiles this inspiring woman, who not only provides economic, legal and emotional support for her charges, but lobbies Congress for immigration reform despite an increasingly hostile political climate. Expected to Attend: Director Dave LaMattina, Chad Walker; film subjects Nora Sandigo, Reymundo Otero, Valerie Travi, Ritibh Kay Kumar. Thursday, November 15, 7:45pm at the IFC Center

THE GREAT MOTHER
(Dave LaMattina & Chad Walker, USA, 2018, 93 min. In English and Spanish with English subtitles)
Buy Tickets

WORLD PREMIERE Nora Sandigo has more than 2,000 kids. The fierce immigration activist serves as the legal guardian for US-born children of undocumented immigrants who have been deported. Were it not for her, many would be forced into the foster care system, keeping them legally separated from their parents. The Great Mother profiles this inspiring woman, who not only provides economic, legal and emotional support for her charges, but lobbies Congress for immigration reform despite an increasingly hostile political climate.
Expected to Attend: Director Dave LaMattina, Chad Walker; film subjects Nora Sandigo, Reymundo Otero, Valerie Travi, Ritibh Kay Kumar.

Thursday, November 15, 7:45pm at the IFC Center

View Event →
Nov
5
7:15 PM19:15

Special Screening of Fabio Meira's TWO IRENES

TheTwoIrenes1.jpg

TWO IRENES 
(As Duas Irenes, Fabio Meira, Brazil, 2017, 89 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)

Q&A with director Fabio Meira
Presented as part of the ongoing series 'If You Can Screen it There: Premiering Contemporary Latin American Cinema.'

By chance, Brazilian teenager Irene (newcomer Priscila Bittencourt, in an assured performance) discovers that there is another 13-year-old Irene living in the same town. Curiously, she observes the confident, cheerful girl who lives alone with her mother. She is fascinated by this other world beyond the bounds of her own well-to-do and traditional family. This other Irene seems free. Soon the two girls, apparently so different from each other, are spending every day together, meeting up with boys in the cinema or going to the lake. When they start talking about their fathers, they notice that they have more in common than they had thought. Winner of the Best First Feature and Best Cinematography awards at the Guadalajara Film Festival, this debut feature by Fabio Meira is an exquisite mosaic that weaves a wonderfully delicate web around questions of identity, true friendship, and the first steps towards adulthood.

Monday, November 5, 7:15pm
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Avenue (at 2nd Street), New York City
(212) 505-5181 

Tickets are sold the same day of the show.
For more information visit: http://anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/series/49892

 
 

Sponsored by the Consulate General of Brazil in New York.

View Event →
Oct
19
7:15 PM19:15

Special Screening of Albertina Carri's CUATREROS

201714737_2-1000x600.jpg

CUATREROS / RUSTLERS

(Albertina Carri, Argentina, 2016, 85 min. In Spanish with English subtitles) 

Inspired by the first book written by her father, sociologist Roberto Carri, acclaimed filmmaker Albertina Carri (Los Rubios) travels to northern Argentina, following in the footsteps of Isidro Velázquez, the country's last cuatrero or rustler, accused of stealing cattle and shot dead by police in 1967. Building the narrative through archival footage, home videos, ads, movies and interviews, and framing it with the search for a lost film based on her father's book, Carri's visually fertile documentary—a favorite at the Berlin and Mar del Plata film festivals—tells a story full of legends, families, politics and cinema. 

Friday, October 19, 7:15pm

Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Avenue (at 2nd Street), New York City

(212) 505-5181 / www.anthologyfilmarchives.org
Please note: Tickets available at the box office the day of the screening only

 
View Event →
Oct
18
to Oct 21

Latin American Films at the Margaret Mead Film Festival

  • American Museum of Natural History (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Latin American Films
at the Margaret Mead Film Festival
Co-presented by Cinema Tropical

October 18 - 21
American Museum of Natural History

 

The American Museum of Natural History's Margaret Mead Film Festival, occurring October 18–21, 2018, screens documentaries that increase our understanding of the complexity and diversity of the peoples and cultures that populate our planet. The festival has evolved with the times while maintaining its important history and has grown steadily to reflect the ever-evolving incarnations of storytelling, technology and growing access to communities near and far. The Mead presents the best in documentary, experimental films, animation, hybrid works, and more. 

This year's festival reflects stories of resilience–portraits of strength and action by people who are rising up, breaking new ground, and pushing their communities forward. Collectively, our new centerpiece, highlights work from community organizations that train and support Indigenous and other filmmakers in telling their own stories. 

 

OBSCURO BARROCO (Evangelia Kranioti, France/Greece/Brazil, 2018, 59 min.) U.S. Premiere / Buy Tickets What is the essence of a city that is constantly changing? In the months surrounding Carnival, Rio de Janeiro pulses with sound, color, and fluidity. Queer Brazilian icon Luana Muniz leads us through her stream of consciousness—from underground dance parties to the deep Brazilian forest to local political uprisings—into the very heart of Rio during Carnival. Friday, October 19, 9:30pm

OBSCURO BARROCO
(Evangelia Kranioti, France/Greece/Brazil, 2018, 59 min.)
U.S. Premiere / Buy Tickets

What is the essence of a city that is constantly changing? In the months surrounding Carnival, Rio de Janeiro pulses with sound, color, and fluidity. Queer Brazilian icon Luana Muniz leads us through her stream of consciousness—from underground dance parties to the deep Brazilian forest to local political uprisings—into the very heart of Rio during Carnival.

Friday, October 19, 9:30pm

THE SOUNDS OF BELLS / O SOM DOS SINOS (Marcia Mansur and Marina Thomé, Brazil, 2016, 70 min.) U.S. Premiere / Buy Tickets Church bells announce the time for work, rest, prayer, and celebration. But for the people of Minas Gerais, Brazil, the sound of bells transcends the everyday. As a group of young bell ringers develop a sense of pride in making their own sound reverberate through their town, we see how religious experience connects the community to something larger than themselves. Saturday, October 20, 11:30am

THE SOUNDS OF BELLS / O SOM DOS SINOS
(Marcia Mansur and Marina Thomé, Brazil, 2016, 70 min.)
U.S. Premiere / Buy Tickets

Church bells announce the time for work, rest, prayer, and celebration. But for the people of Minas Gerais, Brazil, the sound of bells transcends the everyday. As a group of young bell ringers develop a sense of pride in making their own sound reverberate through their town, we see how religious experience connects the community to something larger than themselves.

Saturday, October 20, 11:30am

AMANECER (Carmen Torres, Spain/Colombia, 2018, 78 min. In Spanish with English subtitles) US Premiere / Director in Attendance / Buy Tickets Carmen Torres never had a chance to ask about her birthmother because her adoptive mother died when Carmen was just 13. As an adult she is confronted with the impersonal nature of a bureaucratic adoption agency. When she decides to trace her biological roots to a rural community in Colombia, one question remains: why was she given up for adoption? Saturday, October 20, 2pm

AMANECER
(Carmen Torres, Spain/Colombia, 2018, 78 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
US Premiere / Director in Attendance / Buy Tickets

Carmen Torres never had a chance to ask about her birthmother because her adoptive mother died when Carmen was just 13. As an adult she is confronted with the impersonal nature of a bureaucratic adoption agency. When she decides to trace her biological roots to a rural community in Colombia, one question remains: why was she given up for adoption?

Saturday, October 20, 2pm

THE GUARDIANS (Ben Crosbie, Tessa Moran, USA/Mexico, 2018, 70 min.) New York Premiere / Directors in Attendance / Buy Tickets A quiet meditation on the migration of the monarch butterfly becomes a political melodrama. A Mexican Indigenous community goes to battle to protect their land, which is also the migratory home of the butterflies. Facing marauding loggers and diminishing crop returns, how far will the farmers of Donaciano Ojeda go to provide a sustainable future for their children? Saturday, October 20, 6:30pm

THE GUARDIANS
(Ben Crosbie, Tessa Moran, USA/Mexico, 2018, 70 min.)
New York Premiere / Directors in Attendance / Buy Tickets

A quiet meditation on the migration of the monarch butterfly becomes a political melodrama. A Mexican Indigenous community goes to battle to protect their land, which is also the migratory home of the butterflies. Facing marauding loggers and diminishing crop returns, how far will the farmers of Donaciano Ojeda go to provide a sustainable future for their children?

Saturday, October 20, 6:30pm

MAMACITA (José Pablo Estrada Torrescano, Mexico/Germany, 2018, 75 min. In Spanish with English subtitles) New York Premiere / Buy Tickets An eccentric Mexican beauty tycoon invites her estranged grandson to make a film celebrating her rags-to-riches success story. But when the young filmmaker arrives at the extravagant castle-like compound that his 95-year old Mamacita calls home, he finds a story that is much darker, and much richer, than he imagined. Sunday, October 21, 5:30pm

MAMACITA
(José Pablo Estrada Torrescano, Mexico/Germany, 2018, 75 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
New York Premiere / Buy Tickets

An eccentric Mexican beauty tycoon invites her estranged grandson to make a film celebrating her rags-to-riches success story. But when the young filmmaker arrives at the extravagant castle-like compound that his 95-year old Mamacita calls home, he finds a story that is much darker, and much richer, than he imagined.

Sunday, October 21, 5:30pm

A BOLD PEACE (Matthew Eddy, USA/Costa Rica, 2016, 89 min. In Spanish with English subtitles) Buy Tickets Costa Rica disbanded its military 60 years ago and directed its resources toward education, health, and the environment. Since then it has earned the number one spot in the Happy Planet Index, a ranking of countries based on measures of environmental protection and the happiness and health of its citizens. Surrounded by war in the Americas, how has the government of Costa Rica managed to put the happiness of its people first? Sunday, October 21, 5:30pm

A BOLD PEACE
(Matthew Eddy, USA/Costa Rica, 2016, 89 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Buy Tickets

Costa Rica disbanded its military 60 years ago and directed its resources toward education, health, and the environment. Since then it has earned the number one spot in the Happy Planet Index, a ranking of countries based on measures of environmental protection and the happiness and health of its citizens. Surrounded by war in the Americas, how has the government of Costa Rica managed to put the happiness of its people first?

Sunday, October 21, 5:30pm

View Event →
Oct
13
7:00 PM19:00

Celebrate Mexico Now Presents BELLAS DE NOCHE

BELLAS DE NOCHE
(María José Cuevas, Mexico, 2016, 91 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)

Bellas de Noche / Beauties of the Night, is an intimate glimpse into the past and present lives of Mexico’s biggest cabaret stars of the 70s and 80s. These five legendary showgirls represent the voices of the last generation of cabaret stars after the massive earthquake of 1985 in Mexico City destroyed these cabarets, which were never to be rebuilt. Director Maria Jose Cuevas spent eight years shooting over 180 hours of footage, crafting an honest work based on trust and friendship; weaving a unique portrait of each woman.

This film gives us insight into the world of showgirls, exploring the successes and failures of women’s power obtained through beauty and sensuality, as well as the dignity of their aging. It addresses both taboo and struggle for these aging stars, as each of them find their own way with love, strength, acceptance and perseverance.

Bellas de Noche was awarded best documentary, the Premio Guerrero Press Award, and best documentary by a woman at Morelia International Film Festival.

Join us for a screening followed by a Q+A with the director and stars of the film Lyn May, Princesa Yamal, and Olga Breeskin. Moderated by Carlos Gutiérrez, Executive Director, Cinema Tropical.

This event is co-presented with Cinema Tropical.

 
 
View Event →
Sep
28
to Oct 25

U.S. Theatrical Release of 306 HOLLYWOOD

xtHz-aqg.jpg

306 HOLLYWOOD
A film by Elan and Jonathan Bogarín
(USA, 2018, 82 min. In English)

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. 

Opens September 28
Quad Cinema

 
 
View Event →
Sep
20
7:30 PM19:30

U.S. Premiere of WILLIAM, THE NEW JUDO MASTER

WILLIAM, THE NEW JUDO MASTER 
(William, el nuevo maestro del judo, Ricardo Silva & Omar Guzmán, Mexico, 2016, 96 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
U.S. Premiere!
Co-presented by Proyector

"Back in the 1950s, Swedish-American singer William Clauson had a worldwide hit with ‘La Bamba.’ Now he lives in a ramshackle garage in Tijuana, Mexico. In William, the New Judo Master, directors Ricardo Silva and Omar Guzmán show how a Mexican nurse washes his naked old body. ‘How did we get here?’ a voiceover muses. ‘What road led us here? When did we take it?’ This fascinating film essay is about the struggle against time, old age, and transitoriness. Silva’s debut film, Navajazo (2014), was already a hybrid form of documentary and fiction, but here (with Guzmán) he goes further, producing a surrealist collage. For example, going on a trip to the oldest tree in the world. Or having a middle-aged actor play Clauson, while he is visited by three male prostitutes. Meanwhile, the devil looks on, eyes glowing red." –International Film Festival Rotterdam  

Thursday, September 20, 7:30pm
Anthology Film Archives

 
 
View Event →
Sep
13
to Oct 25

U.S. Theatrical Release of MUSEO Starring Gael García Bernal

MUSEO
Directed by Alonso Ruizpalacios
(Mexico, 2018, 128 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)

Well into their 30s, Juan Nuñez (Gael García Bernal) and Benjamín Wilson (Leonardo Ortizgris) still can’t seem to finish veterinary school or leave their parents’ homes. Instead, they wallow in comfortable limbo in the district of Satélite, Mexico City’s version of an American suburb. On a fateful Christmas Eve, however, they decide it’s finally time to distinguish themselves by executing the most infamous cultural artifacts heist in all of Mexican history, looting the country's iconic National Anthropology Museum.

Inspired by true events, and shot on never-before filmed locations in Mexico, Museo is a sardonic cautionary tale that underscores the old adage: you don’t know what you have until you lose it.

Starring Gael Garcia Bernal, Leonardo Ortizgris, Alfredo Castro and Simon Russell Beale, Museo is Alonso Ruizpalacios's second feature after the award-winning festival hit Güeros.

Opens Friday, September 14 at the Angelika Film Center and Landmark at 57 West in New York City
Opens Friday, September 28 at the Laemmle Monica Film Center and Playhouse 7 in Los Angeles

Q&As with Alonso Ruizpalacios and Gael García Bernal: Thursday 9/13 at the 7pm show, Friday 9/14 at the 7pm show, and Saturday 9/15 at the 8:10pm show at the Angelika Film Center; and on Thursday 9/13 at the 8:15pm show, and Saturday, 9/15 at the 7pm show at the Landmark at 57 West.

 

 
 
View Event →
 
 
 
 

Cinema Tropical's programs are made possible with the support of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. They are also supported, in part, by public funds from the
New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the National Endowments for the Arts