Apr
14
to Jul 22

'Uchronias and Dystopian Futures: Latin American Science Fiction Cinema of the 21st Century'

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Uchronias and Dystopian Futures:
Latin American Science Fiction Cinema
of the 21st Century

Museum of the Moving Image
April 14 -  July 21, 2019

Co-presented by Cinema Tropical


Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Mundos Alternos: Art and Science Fiction in the Americas at Queens Museum, this film series takes a decolonial perspective on Latin American science fiction cinema of the 21st century.

The eight feature films and one short film originate from Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Costa Rica, Cuba, and Mexico, among others and offer a unique focus on the present while reimagining the future.

They range in tone from the fresh comedy of César Caro’s Third World (Tercer mundo) and the intelligently sarcastic humor of Fernando Spiner’s Goodbye Dear Moon (Adiós querida luna); to the combination of sci-fi and horror in Oscar Campo’s I’m Another (Yo soy otro) or the video art experimentation of Daniel Molero’s Videofilia (y otros síndromes virales).

A pointed political consciousness moves each of the directors to create fiction from documentary references or materials that address current socio-cultural conditions. Such is the case of The Project of the Century (La obra del siglo) by Carlos Machado, a fictional film that includes archival footage and is set near the ruins of a Soviet-backed nuclear power plant in Cuba. Adirley Queirós’s White Out, Black In (Braco sai, preto fica) also combines docufiction and Afrofuturism in portraying two victims of police brutality; whereas Amat Escalante uses science fiction as a means to boost evidence of an ominous reality in The Untamed (La región salvaje). 


Organized by guest curator Itala Schmelz, with assistance from Clemente Castor. 

GOODBYE DEAR MOON / ADIÓS QUERIDA LUNA (Fernando Spiner. Argentina. 2004, 100 min. In Spanish and Italian with English subtitles). With Alejandro Urdapilleta, Alejandra Flechner, Gabriel Goity. Introduced by Guest Curator Itala Schmelz; with discussion after the screening Buy Tickets Set in the year 2068, Goodbye Dear Moon is a film with regional roots that doubles as a space opera. To save the earth from natural disasters and catastrophes, an Argentine scientist proposes to destroy the moon against the advice of the international community who has threatened to sanction Argentina. When a group of astronauts directed by the scientist attempt to bomb the moon from a rocket, the moon defends itself by sending out a mysterious force that makes the astronauts hallucinate. Reality suddenly becomes twisted, and the earthlings lose their sanity in a style reminiscent of Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972). The film also touches on discourses surrounding womanhood and femininity: a female astronaut in the group falls in love with a powerful extraterrestrial being—an unknown spirit or God who takes the form of a tango dancer. They escape together while the spaceship is destroyed by the Argentinians. Sunday, April 14, 6:30pm

GOODBYE DEAR MOON / ADIÓS QUERIDA LUNA
(Fernando Spiner. Argentina. 2004, 100 min. In Spanish and Italian with English subtitles). With Alejandro Urdapilleta, Alejandra Flechner, Gabriel Goity.
Introduced by Guest Curator Itala Schmelz; with discussion after the screening
Buy Tickets

Set in the year 2068, Goodbye Dear Moon is a film with regional roots that doubles as a space opera. To save the earth from natural disasters and catastrophes, an Argentine scientist proposes to destroy the moon against the advice of the international community who has threatened to sanction Argentina. When a group of astronauts directed by the scientist attempt to bomb the moon from a rocket, the moon defends itself by sending out a mysterious force that makes the astronauts hallucinate. Reality suddenly becomes twisted, and the earthlings lose their sanity in a style reminiscent of Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972). The film also touches on discourses surrounding womanhood and femininity: a female astronaut in the group falls in love with a powerful extraterrestrial being—an unknown spirit or God who takes the form of a tango dancer. They escape together while the spaceship is destroyed by the Argentinians.

Sunday, April 14, 6:30pm

THIRD WORLD / TERCER MUNDO (Cesar Caro, Bolivia/Chile/Costa Rica. 2009, 85 mins. In Spanish with English subtitles) With Juan Pablo Garuti, Carmen Tito, Luis Miguel Sanchez. Buy Tickets In this film, the imaginaries dominating science fiction—astronauts, alien sightings, and meteorites that threaten the end of the world—are staged in three parallel story lines. The protagonists are a Chilean scientist engaged in a secret NASA mission; an indigenous Bolivian woman whose grandfather transmits knowledge to her about pre-Hispanic cultures with extraterrestrial contacts; and a group of Costa Rican friends, including one who thinks he is an alien and another who is a devoted fan of science fiction and unsuccessfully pursues encounters of the third kind. Sunday, April 28, 6:30pm

THIRD WORLD / TERCER MUNDO
(Cesar Caro, Bolivia/Chile/Costa Rica. 2009, 85 mins. In Spanish with English subtitles) With Juan Pablo Garuti, Carmen Tito, Luis Miguel Sanchez.
Buy Tickets

In this film, the imaginaries dominating science fiction—astronauts, alien sightings, and meteorites that threaten the end of the world—are staged in three parallel story lines. The protagonists are a Chilean scientist engaged in a secret NASA mission; an indigenous Bolivian woman whose grandfather transmits knowledge to her about pre-Hispanic cultures with extraterrestrial contacts; and a group of Costa Rican friends, including one who thinks he is an alien and another who is a devoted fan of science fiction and unsuccessfully pursues encounters of the third kind.

Sunday, April 28, 6:30pm

THE PROJECT OF THE CENTURY / LA OBRA DEL SIGLO ( La obra del siglo , Carlos Machado Quintela. Cuba. 2015, 100 min.) With Mario Balmaseda, Mario Guerra, Leonardo Gascón. In Spanish with English subtitles. Preceded by THE SATELLITE SPACE CENTER OF COLOMBIA ( Centro espacial satelital de Colombia, La Decanatura. Colombia, 2015, 10 min.) Sunday, May 12, 6:30pm

THE PROJECT OF THE CENTURY / LA OBRA DEL SIGLO
(La obra del siglo, Carlos Machado Quintela. Cuba. 2015, 100 min.) With Mario Balmaseda, Mario Guerra, Leonardo Gascón. In Spanish with English subtitles.
Preceded by THE SATELLITE SPACE CENTER OF COLOMBIA (Centro espacial satelital de Colombia, La Decanatura. Colombia, 2015, 10 min.)

Sunday, May 12, 6:30pm

I'M ANOTHER / YO SOY OTRO ( Yo soy otro , Oscar Campo. Colombia. 2008, 83 min.) With Héctor García, Jenifer Nava, Patricia Castañeda. Sunday, May 26, 6:30pm

I'M ANOTHER / YO SOY OTRO
(Yo soy otro, Oscar Campo. Colombia. 2008, 83 min.) With Héctor García, Jenifer Nava, Patricia Castañeda.

Sunday, May 26, 6:30pm

VIDEOPHILIA (AND OTHER VIRAL SYNDROMES) / VIDEOFILIA (Y OTROS SÍNDROMES VIRALES) (Juan Daniel F. Molero. Peru. 2015, 112 min. In Spanish and English with English subtitles) Sunday, June 9, 6:30pm

VIDEOPHILIA (AND OTHER VIRAL SYNDROMES) / VIDEOFILIA (Y OTROS SÍNDROMES VIRALES)
(Juan Daniel F. Molero. Peru. 2015, 112 min. In Spanish and English with English subtitles)

Sunday, June 9, 6:30pm

WHITE OUT, BLACK IN / BRANCO SAI, PETRO FICA ( Branco sai, preto fica, Adirley Queirós. Brazil, 2014, 90 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles) With Marquim do Tropa, Dilmar Durães. Sunday, June 23, 6:30pm

WHITE OUT, BLACK IN / BRANCO SAI, PETRO FICA
(Branco sai, preto fica, Adirley Queirós. Brazil, 2014, 90 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles) With Marquim do Tropa, Dilmar Durães.

Sunday, June 23, 6:30pm

UFOS IN ZACAPA / OVNIS EN ZACAPA ( Marcos Machado Loria. Guatemala. 2014, 90 min. In Spanish with English subtitles) With Roberto Diaz, Alejandra Estrada, Daneri Gudiel. Sunday, July 7, 6:30pm

UFOS IN ZACAPA / OVNIS EN ZACAPA

( Marcos Machado Loria. Guatemala. 2014, 90 min. In Spanish with English subtitles) With Roberto Diaz, Alejandra Estrada, Daneri Gudiel.

Sunday, July 7, 6:30pm

THE UNTAMED / LA REGIÓN SALVAJE (Amat Escalante. Mexico. 2016, 98 min. In Spanish with English subtitles) With Ruth Ramos, Simone Bucio, Jesús Meza Sunday, July 21, 6:30pm

THE UNTAMED / LA REGIÓN SALVAJE

(Amat Escalante. Mexico. 2016, 98 min. In Spanish with English subtitles) With Ruth Ramos, Simone Bucio, Jesús Meza

Sunday, July 21, 6:30pm

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Jun
9
to Sep 9

Cinema Brasileiro at the New York Botanical Garden

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Cinema Brasileiro

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

June - September 2019
New York Botanical Garden


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

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

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

Click here for complete information


LANDSCAPE FILM: ROBERTO BURLE MARX (Filme Paisagem: Um Olhar Sobre Roberto Burle Marx, João Vargas Penna, Brazil, 2018, 74 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles) Filmmaker João Vargas Penna in attendance The life and works of Roberto Burle Marx (1909-1994) are portrayed in this documentary. The film presents his ideas and memories through a succession of sensorial landscapes that refer to the trajectory of the painter, sculptor, and landscape architect who designed squares and gardens in cities like Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasília and Recife - most of them marked by native plants of Brazil that form his signature, undulating patterns. Sunday, June 9, 2pm

LANDSCAPE FILM: ROBERTO BURLE MARX
(Filme Paisagem: Um Olhar Sobre Roberto Burle Marx, João Vargas Penna, Brazil, 2018, 74 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)

Filmmaker João Vargas Penna in attendance

The life and works of Roberto Burle Marx (1909-1994) are portrayed in this documentary. The film presents his ideas and memories through a succession of sensorial landscapes that refer to the trajectory of the painter, sculptor, and landscape architect who designed squares and gardens in cities like Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasília and Recife - most of them marked by native plants of Brazil that form his signature, undulating patterns.

Sunday, June 9, 2pm

THIS IS BOSSA NOVA ( Coisa Mais Linda: Historias e Casos da Bossa Nova , Paulo Thiago, Brazil, 2007, 126 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles) This Is Bossa Nova presents a historical, musical, and informative look into the birth of bossa nova in the 1950s, following the movement to its peak in 1962 when it became a definitively international phenomenon after a Carnegie Hall concert in New York City. Offering exclusive interviews and performances by Roberto Menescal, Carlos Lyra, João Donato, Alaíde Costa, Johnny Alf, Kay Lira, Leny Andrade, Chris Delano, Joyce, Sergio Ricardo, Billy Blanco - all participants of the era and some contemporary followers— This Is Bossa Nova contains archival images of concerts and international performances of both those Brazilian and foreign artists who participated in the bossa nova movement. Saturday, June 15, 2pm

THIS IS BOSSA NOVA
(Coisa Mais Linda: Historias e Casos da Bossa Nova, Paulo Thiago, Brazil, 2007, 126 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)

This Is Bossa Nova presents a historical, musical, and informative look into the birth of bossa nova in the 1950s, following the movement to its peak in 1962 when it became a definitively international phenomenon after a Carnegie Hall concert in New York City. Offering exclusive interviews and performances by Roberto Menescal, Carlos Lyra, João Donato, Alaíde Costa, Johnny Alf, Kay Lira, Leny Andrade, Chris Delano, Joyce, Sergio Ricardo, Billy Blanco - all participants of the era and some contemporary followers—This Is Bossa Nova contains archival images of concerts and international performances of both those Brazilian and foreign artists who participated in the bossa nova movement.

Saturday, June 15, 2pm

REACHING FOR THE MOON ( Flores Raras , Bruno Barreto, Brazil, 2013, 118 min. In Portuguese and English with English subtitles) Academy Award nominated filmmaker Bruno Barreto returns with a sophisticated tale of an unlikely romance between two extraordinary artists, set against the backdrop of political upheaval and a clash of cultures. Grappling with writer’s block, legendary American poet Elizabeth Bishop (Miranda Otto) travels from New York City to Rio de Janeiro in the 1950s to visit her college friend, Mary (Tracy Middendorf). Hoping to find inspiration on Mary’s sprawling estate, Elizabeth winds up with much more—a tempestuous relationship with Mary’s bohemian partner, architect Lota de Macedo Soares (Glória Pires), that rocks the staid writer to her foundation. Alcoholism, geographical distance and a military coup come between the lovers, but their intimate connection spans decades and forever impacts the life and work of these two extraordinary artists. The attraction of two polar-opposite women has rarely been so volatile and so erotically charged on the big screen. Friday, June 21 and Saturday, June 22, 2pm

REACHING FOR THE MOON
(Flores Raras, Bruno Barreto, Brazil, 2013, 118 min. In Portuguese and English with English subtitles)

Academy Award nominated filmmaker Bruno Barreto returns with a sophisticated tale of an unlikely romance between two extraordinary artists, set against the backdrop of political upheaval and a clash of cultures. Grappling with writer’s block, legendary American poet Elizabeth Bishop (Miranda Otto) travels from New York City to Rio de Janeiro in the 1950s to visit her college friend, Mary (Tracy Middendorf). Hoping to find inspiration on Mary’s sprawling estate, Elizabeth winds up with much more—a tempestuous relationship with Mary’s bohemian partner, architect Lota de Macedo Soares (Glória Pires), that rocks the staid writer to her foundation. Alcoholism, geographical distance and a military coup come between the lovers, but their intimate connection spans decades and forever impacts the life and work of these two extraordinary artists. The attraction of two polar-opposite women has rarely been so volatile and so erotically charged on the big screen.

Friday, June 21 and Saturday, June 22, 2pm

VINICIUS (Miguel Faria Jr., Brazil/Spain, 2005, 121 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles) Vinicius de Moraes (1913-1980) was a cultural force—the sublime poet of the quotidien, author of over 400 poems and 400 song lyrics—and a man who married nine times. He co-wrote The Girl from Ipanema and many other samba and bossa-nova standards. His play Orfeu da Conceição was adapted into the Oscar-winning 1958 film Black Orpheus, for which he also co-wrote several classic songs. To celebrate the life and work of a multifaceted creator—playwright, poet, partner of the most important names of MPB and, above all, an enlightened personage of the country's cultural history—director Miguel Faria Jr. has brought together an incomparable cast of partners, interpreters, friends and rare archival images to reconstruct Vinicius' genial simplicity with the spontaneity, humor, and freedom of friends conversing in a bar. Saturday, July 6, 2pm

VINICIUS
(Miguel Faria Jr., Brazil/Spain, 2005, 121 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)

Vinicius de Moraes (1913-1980) was a cultural force—the sublime poet of the quotidien, author of over 400 poems and 400 song lyrics—and a man who married nine times. He co-wrote The Girl from Ipanema and many other samba and bossa-nova standards. His play Orfeu da Conceição was adapted into the Oscar-winning 1958 film Black Orpheus, for which he also co-wrote several classic songs. To celebrate the life and work of a multifaceted creator—playwright, poet, partner of the most important names of MPB and, above all, an enlightened personage of the country's cultural history—director Miguel Faria Jr. has brought together an incomparable cast of partners, interpreters, friends and rare archival images to reconstruct Vinicius' genial simplicity with the spontaneity, humor, and freedom of friends conversing in a bar.

Saturday, July 6, 2pm

THAT MAN FROM RIO ( L'homme de Ri o, Philippe de Broca, France/Italy, 1964, 112 min. In French, Portuguese, and English with English subtitles) A blow dart-wielding thug snatches a rare statuette from the Musée de l’Homme; anthropologist Jean Servais (Rififi) is kidnapped in broad Parisian daylight; serviceman Jean-Paul Belmondo begins his 8-day leave by changing to civvies in a Métro entrance and witnesses fiancée Françoise Dorléac (Catherine Deneuve’s sister, killed in a car accident 3 years later) getting kidnapped herself–and then the chase begins: by motorcycle, shoe leather, flight to Rio de Janeiro sans ticket or passport, airport baggage carrier, cable car, pink car complete with green stars and a rumble seat, water skies, Amazon river boat, seaplane, jungle vine… all shot in breathtaking widescreen and color. Even as Dorléac, rescued, is kidnapped again, Belmondo performs his own blood-curdling stunts against that sugar loaf Rio skyline and across that under-construction unearthly architecture of Brasilia (even parachuting almost into the jaws of a hungry croc). Saturday, July 20, 2pm

THAT MAN FROM RIO
(L'homme de Rio, Philippe de Broca, France/Italy, 1964, 112 min. In French, Portuguese, and English with English subtitles)

A blow dart-wielding thug snatches a rare statuette from the Musée de l’Homme; anthropologist Jean Servais (Rififi) is kidnapped in broad Parisian daylight; serviceman Jean-Paul Belmondo begins his 8-day leave by changing to civvies in a Métro entrance and witnesses fiancée Françoise Dorléac (Catherine Deneuve’s sister, killed in a car accident 3 years later) getting kidnapped herself–and then the chase begins: by motorcycle, shoe leather, flight to Rio de Janeiro sans ticket or passport, airport baggage carrier, cable car, pink car complete with green stars and a rumble seat, water skies, Amazon river boat, seaplane, jungle vine… all shot in breathtaking widescreen and color. Even as Dorléac, rescued, is kidnapped again, Belmondo performs his own blood-curdling stunts against that sugar loaf Rio skyline and across that under-construction unearthly architecture of Brasilia (even parachuting almost into the jaws of a hungry croc).

Saturday, July 20, 2pm

A CASA DO TOM: MUNDO, MONDE, MONDO (Ana Jobim, Brazil, 2007, 58 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles) Even the most loyal admirer of Antonio Carlos “Tom” Jobim, the most internationally-recognized Brazilian artist and the person most responsible for turning bossa nova into a global sensation, cannot imagine the surprises they will encounter in this film. In this extraordinarily personal documentary directed by his wife Ana Lontra Jobim, Jobim speaks about his love for the nature of the Mata Atlantica and its influence on his music. In fact, his Rio home, the title of this film, is built on the edge of Rio’s Botanic Gardens which rise up the slopes of Corcovado. Shot in New York, Rio, and the family ranch in Poço Fundo, and incorporating previously unreleased material, the film shows intimate family moments, the birth of famous songs, parties at home with other musicians, and even Jobim in pajamas leading an “expedition” in the woods. Saturday, August 3, 2pm

A CASA DO TOM: MUNDO, MONDE, MONDO
(Ana Jobim, Brazil, 2007, 58 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)

Even the most loyal admirer of Antonio Carlos “Tom” Jobim, the most internationally-recognized Brazilian artist and the person most responsible for turning bossa nova into a global sensation, cannot imagine the surprises they will encounter in this film. In this extraordinarily personal documentary directed by his wife Ana Lontra Jobim, Jobim speaks about his love for the nature of the Mata Atlantica and its influence on his music. In fact, his Rio home, the title of this film, is built on the edge of Rio’s Botanic Gardens which rise up the slopes of Corcovado. Shot in New York, Rio, and the family ranch in Poço Fundo, and incorporating previously unreleased material, the film shows intimate family moments, the birth of famous songs, parties at home with other musicians, and even Jobim in pajamas leading an “expedition” in the woods.

Saturday, August 3, 2pm

TEMPLO VERDE (Luiz Eduardo Lerina, Brazil, 2019, 58 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles) Templo Verde ( Green Temple ) has at its center a very special garden where thousands of plant species are sheltered, some endangered. Featuring the participation of landscape artist Cecilia Beatriz da Veiga Soares, biologists Gustavo Martinelli and Henrique Rajão, and nature photographer João Quental, the documentary guides us through the diversity and exuberance of the flora and fauna of Rio de Janeiro’s iconic Botanical Garden. The Garden is located between the Floresta da Tijuca (Tijuca Forest) and urban Rio de Janeiro, consequently provoking reflection on the fate of a rainforest surrounded by city, the risks and challenges for its conservation, and the need for public awareness in order to preserve what remains of the native flora and fauna of Rio's Mata Atlantica. Saturday, August 17, 2pm

TEMPLO VERDE
(Luiz Eduardo Lerina, Brazil, 2019, 58 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)

Templo Verde (Green Temple) has at its center a very special garden where thousands of plant species are sheltered, some endangered. Featuring the participation of landscape artist Cecilia Beatriz da Veiga Soares, biologists Gustavo Martinelli and Henrique Rajão, and nature photographer João Quental, the documentary guides us through the diversity and exuberance of the flora and fauna of Rio de Janeiro’s iconic Botanical Garden. The Garden is located between the Floresta da Tijuca (Tijuca Forest) and urban Rio de Janeiro, consequently provoking reflection on the fate of a rainforest surrounded by city, the risks and challenges for its conservation, and the need for public awareness in order to preserve what remains of the native flora and fauna of Rio's Mata Atlantica.

Saturday, August 17, 2pm

MARGARET MEE AND THE MOONFLOWER ( Margaret Mee e a Flor da Lua, Malu de Martino, Brazil, 2012, 78 min. In Portuguese and English with English subtitles) Discover the work and legacy of botanical illustrator Margaret Mee in Malu de Martino’s documentary Margaret Mee and the Moonflower . The British-born artist spent more than 36 years in Brazil, completed fifteen expeditions into the Amazon rainforest, and produced over 400 illustrations of Brazilian flora, works that are now central to contemporary botanical science research. Drawing on her diaries, interviews, and narratives, the film reveals a tireless advocate for the preservation of Brazilian rainforests and an artist not afraid to command her craft in defense of environmental conservation. Saturday, August 31, 2pm

MARGARET MEE AND THE MOONFLOWER
(Margaret Mee e a Flor da Lua, Malu de Martino, Brazil, 2012, 78 min. In Portuguese and English with English subtitles)

Discover the work and legacy of botanical illustrator Margaret Mee in Malu de Martino’s documentary Margaret Mee and the Moonflower. The British-born artist spent more than 36 years in Brazil, completed fifteen expeditions into the Amazon rainforest, and produced over 400 illustrations of Brazilian flora, works that are now central to contemporary botanical science research. Drawing on her diaries, interviews, and narratives, the film reveals a tireless advocate for the preservation of Brazilian rainforests and an artist not afraid to command her craft in defense of environmental conservation.

Saturday, August 31, 2pm

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Jun
11
to Jul 31

Latin American Films at Rooftop Films 2019

Latin American Films at Rooftop Films

Co-Presented by Cinema Tropical

THE EDGE OF DEMOCRACY A film by Petra Costa (Brazil, 113 min. In Portuguese and English with English subtitles) Buy Tickets As a child in 1985, filmmaker Petra Costa ( Elena , Olmo and the Seagull ) saw democracy take root in Brazil following years of authoritarian rule under a military dictatorship. Gaining unprecedented access to working-party leaders Lula de Silva and his protégée Dilma Rousseff, Costa traces the downfall of both democratic leaders following corruption scandals that resulted in the impeachment of Rousseff and the imprisonment of de Silva. Merging the personal and the political, Costa delves to the heart of her country's unfolding identity crisis, examining widespread institutional corruption while connecting her own family's complex past to Brazil's current crisis. Capturing a unique historical moment, The Edge of Democracy examines the forces at play in the global erosion of democracy. Tuesday, June 11, 7pm The William Vale 111 N 12th St., Williamsburg, Brooklyn $16 online or at the door. Use the code DEMOCRACY25 at checkout to receive 25% of tickets!

THE EDGE OF DEMOCRACY
A film by Petra Costa
(Brazil, 113 min. In Portuguese and English with English subtitles)
Buy Tickets

As a child in 1985, filmmaker Petra Costa (Elena, Olmo and the Seagull) saw democracy take root in Brazil following years of authoritarian rule under a military dictatorship. Gaining unprecedented access to working-party leaders Lula de Silva and his protégée Dilma Rousseff, Costa traces the downfall of both democratic leaders following corruption scandals that resulted in the impeachment of Rousseff and the imprisonment of de Silva. Merging the personal and the political, Costa delves to the heart of her country's unfolding identity crisis, examining widespread institutional corruption while connecting her own family's complex past to Brazil's current crisis. Capturing a unique historical moment, The Edge of Democracy examines the forces at play in the global erosion of democracy.

Tuesday, June 11, 7pm
The William Vale
111 N 12th St., Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$16 online or at the door. Use the code DEMOCRACY25 at checkout to receive 25% of tickets!

THE BONY LADY A film by Thiago Zanato and Adriana Barbosa (USA, Brazil, and Mexico, 20 min.) Buy Tickets Arely Vazquez is a Mexican transgender woman leader of the Saint Death Cult living in Queens, New York. During her yearly celebration to "La Flaca" (The Bony Lady), as she likes to call her, Arely faces a lot of challenges to fulfill a promise she made ten years ago. Presented as part of the ‘New York Non-Fiction’ program. Friday, June 14, 7:45pm Green-Wood Cemetery 500 25th Street, Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn $16 in advance or at the door. Use the code NYNF25 at checkout to receive 25% of tickets!

THE BONY LADY
A film by Thiago Zanato and Adriana Barbosa
(USA, Brazil, and Mexico, 20 min.)
Buy Tickets

Arely Vazquez is a Mexican transgender woman leader of the Saint Death Cult living in Queens, New York. During her yearly celebration to "La Flaca" (The Bony Lady), as she likes to call her, Arely faces a lot of challenges to fulfill a promise she made ten years ago.

Presented as part of the ‘New York Non-Fiction’ program.

Friday, June 14, 7:45pm
Green-Wood Cemetery
500 25th Street, Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn
$16 in advance or at the door. Use the code NYNF25 at checkout to receive 25% of tickets!

TRUE LOVE IN PUEBLO TEXTIL A film by Horatio Baltz (Cuba and USA, 5 min.) Buy Tickets Nine-year-old Maribel explains to us how it feels to be stricken with the world's oldest infliction: love. Presented as part of the ‘Love is Short’ program. Tuesday, July 23, 7pm The William Vale 111 N 12th St., Williamsburg, Brooklyn $16 online or at the door

TRUE LOVE IN PUEBLO TEXTIL
A film by Horatio Baltz
(Cuba and USA, 5 min.)
Buy Tickets

Nine-year-old Maribel explains to us how it feels to be stricken with the world's oldest infliction: love.

Presented as part of the ‘Love is Short’ program.

Tuesday, July 23, 7pm
The William Vale
111 N 12th St., Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$16 online or at the door

MIDNIGHT FAMILY (Luke Lorentzen, USA/Mexico, 81 min. In Spanish with English subtitles) The Ochoa family runs a for-profit ambulance in Mexico City, competing with other EMTs for patients in need of urgent help. While making a living in this cutthroat industry, they struggle to keep their financial needs from jeopardizing the people in their care. When a crackdown by corrupt police forces the family to try legitimizing their operation, their desperate financial situation pushes them into questionable practices even as they continue providing essential emergency medical services. In humanizing the Ochoas’ ethically compromised business, Midnight Family explores urgent questions around healthcare, the failings of government and the complexity of personal responsibility. Saturday, June 29, 7pm Brooklyn Army Terminal 140 58th St., Brooklyn, NY 11220 Free! RSVP requested .

MIDNIGHT FAMILY
(Luke Lorentzen, USA/Mexico, 81 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)

The Ochoa family runs a for-profit ambulance in Mexico City, competing with other EMTs for patients in need of urgent help. While making a living in this cutthroat industry, they struggle to keep their financial needs from jeopardizing the people in their care. When a crackdown by corrupt police forces the family to try legitimizing their operation, their desperate financial situation pushes them into questionable practices even as they continue providing essential emergency medical services. In humanizing the Ochoas’ ethically compromised business, Midnight Family explores urgent questions around healthcare, the failings of government and the complexity of personal responsibility.

Saturday, June 29, 7pm
Brooklyn Army Terminal
140 58th St., Brooklyn, NY 11220
Free! RSVP requested.

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Jun
26
to Jul 25

U.S. Theatrical Release of THE CHAMBERMAID

the-chambermaid-ventana-sur-fest-traveler1.jpg

THE CHAMBERMAID / LA CAMARISTA

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

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

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

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

Opens Wednesday, June 26
Film Forum, New York City
Buy Tickets

Opens Friday, July 5
Laemmle Royal and Laemmle Playhouse 7, Los Angeles
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Opens Friday, July 5
Roxie Theater, San Francisco
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Jul
12
to Jul 18

U.S. Theatrical Release of ROJO

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ROJO

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

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

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

Opens Friday, July 12
Film at Lincoln Center and the Quad Cinema

 
 


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Jul
30
7:30 PM19:30

Brasil Summerfest Presents ARNALDO ANTUNES: IN HIS OWN WORDS and CLEMENTINA

Brasil Summerfest and Cinema Tropical present

ARNALDO ANTUNES: IN HIS OWN WORDS ( Com a Palavra, Arnaldo Antunes , Marcelo Machado, Brazil, 2018, 80 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles) Buy Tickets US Premiere An autobiographical documentary on the role that the word, the music, and the image occupy in Arnaldo Antunes’ work. From his origin as a poet to success as a singer and composer, the artist revisits the more remarkable moments of his career. Tuesday, July 30. 7:30pm Anthology Film Archives 32 Second Avenue, New York City

ARNALDO ANTUNES: IN HIS OWN WORDS
(Com a Palavra, Arnaldo Antunes, Marcelo Machado, Brazil, 2018, 80 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
Buy Tickets

US Premiere

An autobiographical documentary on the role that the word, the music, and the image occupy in Arnaldo Antunes’ work. From his origin as a poet to success as a singer and composer, the artist revisits the more remarkable moments of his career.

Tuesday, July 30. 7:30pm
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Avenue, New York City

CLEMENTINA (Ana Rieper, Brazil, 2018, 75 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles) Buy Tickets US Premiere A look at the trajectory of Brazilian singer Clementina de Jesus (1901-1987). Revealed belatedly at the age of 62, Clementina became one of the greatest voices of samba, representing the so-called “missing link" between Brazilian culture and its African roots. Clementina de Jesus was "discovered" at the age of 62 by researcher Hermínio Bello de Carvalho, becoming one of the greatest proponents of Brazilian samba, music, and culture. Immediately recognized by the musical academy for her unique presence and timbre, she worked as a domestic servant until her career was launched following her debut in the iconic Rosa de Ouro spectacle. She was the first black artist to be honored at the Municipal Theater of Rio de Janeiro in a historical show that brought together Paulinho da Viola, João Nogueira, and Elizeth Cardoso, among other prominent figures of samba. Clementina was honored by the Portela Samba School during their 1982 carnival parade. She left a large repository of material used here for the feature documentary, Clementina. Tuesday, July 30, 9:15pm Anthology Film Archives 32 Second Avenue, New York City

CLEMENTINA
(Ana Rieper, Brazil, 2018, 75 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
Buy Tickets

US Premiere

A look at the trajectory of Brazilian singer Clementina de Jesus (1901-1987). Revealed belatedly at the age of 62, Clementina became one of the greatest voices of samba, representing the so-called “missing link" between Brazilian culture and its African roots. Clementina de Jesus was "discovered" at the age of 62 by researcher Hermínio Bello de Carvalho, becoming one of the greatest proponents of Brazilian samba, music, and culture. Immediately recognized by the musical academy for her unique presence and timbre, she worked as a domestic servant until her career was launched following her debut in the iconic Rosa de Ouro spectacle. She was the first black artist to be honored at the Municipal Theater of Rio de Janeiro in a historical show that brought together Paulinho da Viola, João Nogueira, and Elizeth Cardoso, among other prominent figures of samba. Clementina was honored by the Portela Samba School during their 1982 carnival parade. She left a large repository of material used here for the feature documentary, Clementina.

Tuesday, July 30, 9:15pm
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Avenue, New York City

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Aug
1
7:15 PM19:15

U.S. Premiere of THE DISCIPLE OF SPEED

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THE DISCIPLE OF SPEED / LA DISCÍPULA DEL VELOCÍMETRO
(Miguel Calderón, Mexico, 2008, 66 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)

U.S. Premiere! / Filmmaker in person

In this biographical documentary about the 50-year-old Mexican multimillionaire Emma, visual artist Miguel Calderón shows how reality can far surpass fiction in improbability. Basically his film is made up of the video research for a full-length film. The way Emma garnered her fortune remains unclear and unimportant. However, the way in which that money makes it possible for her to go to the limit in her extreme hobbies and activities becomes overwhelmingly clear. The eccentric millionaire, mother of a strange adolescent son, has a black belt in karate, is a stuntwoman and artiste, and claims to have paranormal gifts. Calderón follows her during races, film recordings, paragnostic performances, and dinners with friends, but is – rightly – just as interested in the thoughts of the 25 bodyguards and in her son’s gun collection. The woman is entirely convinced of herself and has no trouble linking together different worlds. But Calderón, who wields the camera, increasingly becomes the frustrated protagonist in his own failed project.” –International Rotterdam Film Festival

Thursday, August 1, 7:15pm
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Avenue, New York City
No advance ticket sale: Tickets available the day of the screening only

Presented as part of ‘’If You Can Screen It There: Premiering Contemporary Latin American Cinema,’ programmed by Matías Piñeiro and Carlos A. Gutiérrez.

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Aug
2
to Aug 8

U.S. Theatrical Release of Mariano Llinás' LA FLOR

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

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

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

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Jul
11
7:15 PM19:15

U.S. Premiere of THE DEATH OF THE MASTER

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THE DEATH OF THE MASTER / LA MUERTE DEL MAESTRO
(José María Avilés, Ecuador/Argentina, 2018, 62 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)

U.S. Premiere!
Co-presented by Kinoscope and the Ecuadorian Film Festival in New York (EFFNY).

“On April 16, 2016, a severe earthquake hit coastal Ecuador. José María Avilés’s first feature film is based on this national disaster, but at a great distance from the collapsed buildings and buried loved ones. He shows how an unexpected event can suddenly modify all the rules of the game, even in the remote town of Angamarca – the setting of the film – where the effects of the quake arrive as distant echoes of hostility in the natural environment. An elderly farmer has become one with the land, the lemon trees, and the livestock. But something has changed; nature is disturbed. Water doesn’t run off well, a calf dies for no reason, and the wind keeps picking up. Acting calmly, yet with rising desperation, the ‘maestro’ adheres to his daily routine, trying to get things back on track. It will kill him, that’s certain.” –International Film Festival Rotterdam

Thursday, July 11, 7:15pm
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Avenue, New York City
No advance ticket sale: Tickets available the day of the screening only


Presented as part of ‘’If You Can Screen It There: Premiering Contemporary Latin American Cinema,’ programmed by Matías Piñeiro and Carlos A. Gutiérrez.

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Jul
10
8:30 PM20:30

Films on the Green Presents THE AMAZING CATFISH

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Films on the Green
and Cinema Tropical Present

THE AMAZING CATFISH / LOS INSÓLITOS PECES GATO
(Claudia Sainte-Luce, Mexico/France, 2013, 95 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
With Lisa Owen, Ximena Ayala, Sonia Franco

Martha (Owen), a mother of four rambunctious and imaginative children, finds solace upon meeting Claudia (Ayala), a younger woman trying to figure out her purpose in life. The two quickly become friends and Martha invites Claudia to come live with her family. When Martha’s health declines, the bond Claudia has with each member of the family is forced to be tested, giving opportunity for true, strong relationships to be created.

July 10, 8:30pm
J. Hood Wright Park
351 Fort Washington Avenue, New York City

 
 
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Jun
28
to Jul 4

Theatrical Release of Les Blank's CHULAS FRONTERAS

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

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

Screening with Del Mero Corazón (Straight from the Heart)

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

 
 
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Jun
27
7:15 PM19:15

U.S. Premiere of THE OMISSION

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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

 
 
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Jun
19
to Jun 20

IT'S ALL GOOD at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival

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Human Rights Watch Film Festival presents

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

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

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

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

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

 
 
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Jun
4
6:00 PM18:00

BLACK GODDESS at the New York African Film Festival

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The New York African Film Festival presents

BLACK GODDESS / A DEUSA NEGRA
(Ola Balogun, Nigeria/Brazil, 1978, 95 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)

Co-presented by Cinema Tropical
Q&A with Ola Balogun

Black Goddess is a classic Nigerian-Brazilian film from director Ola Balogun that journeys into the past and present of Africa. Balogun’s tale is a love story that spans three centuries, set in both the 18th century and the 1970s, when the movie was made. Structured in the form of mystical journey, the film unfolds under the aegis of the Yoruba divinity Yemoja.

Monday, June 4, 6pm
Francesca Beale Theater
Film at Lincoln Center
144 West 65th Street

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May
31
to Jun 13

U.S. Theatrical Release of TOO LATE TO DIE YOUNG

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

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

Opens Friday, May 31
Film at Lincoln Center, New York City
Q&As with Dominga Sotomayor at the 6:45pm screenings on May 31 and June 1 
Buy tickets

Opens Friday, June 7
Laemmle Music Hall, Los Angeles
Buy tickets

 
 
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May
17
to Jun 13

U.S. Theatrical Release of THE WANDERING SOAP OPERA

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

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

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

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

Distributed by The Cinema Guild.

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

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

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

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

 
 
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May
10
to May 12

COUNCILWOMAN at Workers Unite! Film Festival

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

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

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

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May
10
to May 16

U.S. Release of Brazilian Supernatural Horror Noir OUR EVIL

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

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

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

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

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May
9
7:15 PM19:15

New York Premiere of STRANGE BUT TRUE

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STRANGE BUT TRUE
(Extraño pero verdadero, 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

 
 

Co-presented by:

 
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Apr
27
6:00 PM18:00

Indocumentales Presents THE UNAFRAID

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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 Celso Perez (Staff Attorney at the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project), Andres Guerrero (NYU MEXSA), and Shamina de Gonzaga (World Council of Peoples for the United Nations).

Saturday, Apri 27, 6pm - 8:30pm
King Juan Carlos I Center at New York University
53 Washington Square South, New York City
Click here to RSVP

 
 
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Apr
24
to May 5

New York Premiere of THIS IS NOT BERLIN at Tribeca

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THIS IS NOT BERLIN
(Esto no es Berlín, Hari Sama, 2019, Mexico, 112 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)

The year is 1986, and World Cup fever has hit Mexico. Carlos (Xabiani Ponce de León) and Gera (José Antonio Toledano) are two best friends from middle-class families who are starting to feel out of place in their sheltered, entitled milieu. But then they discover a liberating, mysterious world of art, drugs, and sex amid the underground clubs of Mexico City. 

Hari Sama's electrifying coming-of-age tale doesn't take the traditional route for this type of story. Rather, the film eventually comes to embody the anarchic, hedonistic spirit of experimental post-punk excess—transforming into a kaleidoscopic portrait of avant-garde art, direct-action protest, queer awakening, and the dizzying, dangerous freedom of a world seemingly without rules. It's the age of AIDS, and right-wing conformism, but the film is neither cautionary tale nor nostalgia trip. Anchored by marvelous performances from its young cast, and Sama's assured, inventive sense of style, it's a picture suffused in both historical perspective and a forward-looking sense of the possible.

Tribeca Film Festival
Sunday, April 28, 6:45pm at Village East Cinema 4
Monday, April 29, 9:15pm at Regal Cinemas Battery Park
Thursday, May 2, 9:45pm at Village East Cinema 4

 
 
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Apr
11
7:15 PM19:15

New York Premiere of THE WEAK ONES

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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

 
 
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Apr
5
7:10 PM19:10

LOS REYES at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival

  • Cinema 4 — Durham Convention Center (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS
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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. “

Friday, April 5, 7:10pm
Cinema 4 — Durham Convention Center
301 West Morgan Street, Durham, NC
https://www.fullframefest.org/film/los-reyes/

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Mar
25
6:30 PM18:30

Indocumentales Presents I'M LEAVING NOW

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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.

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Mar
14
7:15 PM19:15

NOELÍ OVERSEAS at Anthology Film Archives

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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

 
 
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Mar
14
to Mar 17

Caribbean Film Series: A 5th Anniversary Festival

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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

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Mar
10
to Mar 16

World Premiere of DAYS OF THE WHALE at SXSW

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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

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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
8
to Mar 21

Los Angeles Theatrical Release of THE HEIRESSES

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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
1
to Mar 7

U.S. Theatrical Release of THE CANNIBAL CLUB

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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

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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
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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

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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

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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'

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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

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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
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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

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Jan
24
to Feb 3

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

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“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

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Jan
17
7:15 PM19:15

New York Premiere of LAS OLAS / THE WAVES

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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

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Jan
13
2:00 PM14:00

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

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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. 

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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, 
the National Endowments for the Arts, and the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture.