ANDRÉ MIDANI — AN INSIDER'S STORY OF BRAZILIAN MUSIC
(André Midani – Do vinil ao download, Andrucha Waddington & Mini Kerti, Brazil, 2015, 120 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)

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Based on André Midani’s autobiography, this feature discusses crucial events in Brazilian music by telling about the life and relationships of this music industry executive who molded amazing careers and made the industry boom in Brazil between 1950 and 2000. His story is told through informal gatherings and jam sessions done at André’s house with artists, intellectuals and journalists who influenced him and who were influenced by him. These gatherings contributed many things, both material and immaterial, to the culture of the country.

Screening followed by a conversation with legendary music producer André Midani and journalist Larry Rohter.

Watch the trailer:

'24th New York African Film Festival'
Films co-presented by Cinema Tropical

PLAY THE DEVIL
(Maria Govan, Trinidad, 2016, 90 min. In English)
In Play the Devil, the prevailing poverty and lush beauty of Trinidad and the pulsating rhythms of Carnival are backdrop to a story where dreams and obsession collide. Gifted 18-year-old Gregory is his family’s only hope for financial success. When the naive young man meets James, a powerful, affluent businessman offering friendship and guidance, his world spins out of control. As James’s persistent advances become more intrusive and menacing, Gregory’s initial compliance changes to rejection and the fallout threatens to ruin his future and expose his secrets. Gregory and James face each other once again—on Carnival Monday, when young men cover themselves in blue paint, dress as devils, and become lost in the frenzy of drumming and howling.
Sunday, May 7, 6:15pm

AYITI MON AMOUR
(Guetty Felin, Haiti, 2016, 88 min. In Haitian Creole, French, and Japanese with English subtitles)
Set in Haiti five years after the devastating 2010 earthquake, Guetty Felin’s magical realist tale avoids the kinds of images of the disaster that saturated screens around the world. In his depiction of young Orphée’s grief over the loss of his father beneath the rubble of decimated buildings (represented in ghostly images that float beneath the ocean’s surface), Felin refuses to tell a story of victimhood. Instead, she gives the narrative back to the Haitian people, whose lives cannot be reduced headlines. And as her characters begin to heal, Felin suggests that the island will too.
Preceded by: JOJOLO (Lebert Bethune, Jamaica/USA, 1966, 12 min. In English) A subtle study of cultural identity following a graceful young woman of Haitian descent who works as a fashion model and actress in cosmopolitan Paris. Cool, light, and lyrical in style, Bethune’s portrait has a deft thematic touch. 
Sunday, May 7, 8:30pm

(Emilio Gómez Muriel and Fred Zinnemann, Mexico, 1936, b&w, 59 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)

A singular coming together of talents, Redes, commissioned by a progressive Mexican government, was co-written and shot by photographer Paul Strand, with a score by Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas. The PostClassical Ensemble, led by Ángel Gil Ordóñez, which recently recorded the soundtrack for the release of the restored version of the film for Naxos, performs some of Revueltas’s music. A panel discussion, featuring Post-Classical Ensemble Executive Director Joseph Horowitz and conductor Gil Ordóñez, follows the concert. 

About the project
Horowitz writes: "Silvestre Revueltas – a master Mexican composer whose time will come – composed one of the greatest of all film scores for one of the most beautifully photographed films ever made. The 1935 movie in question is Redes (Nets), an iconic product of the Mexican Revolution. The cinematographer was Paul Strand, the most famous American name in the history of photography as an artform; the director was Fred Zinnemann, en route to Hollywood. There are three reasons why this film is not better-known. The first is that it is Mexican. The second is that there existed no decent print until Redes was restored by Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Foundation. The third is that the soundtrack is execrable. Only with this new Naxos release, with a fresh recording of Revueltas’ galvanizing score, can the full impact of Redes be realized."

About the panel
The former Associate Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Spain, PostClassical Ensemble Music Director Angel Gil-Ordóñez has conducted symphonic music, opera and ballet throughout Europe, the United States and Latin America. In the U.S., he has appeared with the American Composers Orchestra, Opera Colorado, the Pacific Symphony, the Hartford Symphony, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and the National Gallery Orchestra in Washington. Abroad, he has been heard with the Munich Philharmonic, the Solistes de Berne, at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and at the Bellas Artes National Theatre in Mexico City. In the summer of 2000, he toured the major music festivals of Spain with the Valencia Symphony Orchestra in the Spanish premiere of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass. Born in Madrid and an American citizen since 2009, he worked closely with Sergiu Celibidache in Germany for more than six years. He also studied with Boulez and Xenakis in France. Currently the Music Director of Post-Classical Ensemble in Washington, D.C., he also serves as advisor for education and programming for Trinitate Philharmonia (León, Mexico), modeled on Venezuela’s El Sistema, conducting its youth orchestra and choir several weeks per year. A specialist in the Spanish repertoire, Mr. Gil-Ordóñez has recorded four CDs devoted to Spanish composers, in addition to Post-Classical Ensemble’s Virgil Thomson and Copland CD/DVDs on Naxos (Artist of the Week for both releases). In 2006, the King of Spain awarded Mr. Gil-Ordóñez the country’s highest civilian decoration, the Royal Order of Queen Isabella, for his work in advancing Spanish culture around the world, in particular for performing and teaching Spanish music in its cultural context. Mr. Gil-Ordóñez received a WAMMIE award in 2011 from the Washington DC association of professional musicians in the category of best conductor. Gil-Ordóñez is currently Principal Guest Conductor of New York’s Perspectives Ensemble and Music Director of the Georgetown University Orchestra.

PostClassical Ensemble Executive Director Joseph Horowitz has long been a pioneer in classical music programming, beginning with his tenure as Artistic Advisor for the annual Schubertiade at the 92nd Street Y. As Executive Director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra, resident orchestra of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, he received national attention for “The Russian Stravinsky,” “American Transcendentalists,” “Flamenco,” and other festivals exploring the folk roots of concert works. Now an artistic advisor to various American orchestras, he has created more than three dozen interdisciplinary music festivals since 1985 —including the annual American Composers Festival presented by the Pacific Symphony Orchestra. In Fall 2008, he inaugurated the New York Philharmonic’s “Inside the Music” series, writing, hosting and producing a program about Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique symphony; his subsequent and pending Philharmonic productions explore Dvořák, Brahms and Stravinsky. He is currently curating thematic festival projects for the Florida Symphony, the Pacific Symphony, the Pacific Symphony Youth Orchestra, the North Carolina Symphony, and the Buffalo Philharmonic. Called “our nation’s leading scholar of the symphony orchestra” by Charles Olton (American Symphony Orchestra League), Mr. Horowitz is also the award-winning author of eight books mainly dealing with the institutional history of classical music in the United States: both Classical Music in America: A History (2005) and Artists in Exile: How Refugees from 20th Century War and Revolution Transformed the American Performing Arts (2008) were named best books of the year by The Economist. As Project Director of a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) National Education Project, as well as an NEH Teacher Training Institute, he is the author of a book for young readers, Dvořák in America, linked to a state-of-the-art DVD. For the NEA, Mr. Horowitz servee as Artistic Director of an annual national institute for music critics at Columbia University. A former New York Times music critic, Mr. Horowitz writes regularly for the Times Literary Supplement (UK) and contributes frequently to scholarly journals. His many honors and awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, two NEH fellowships and a commendation from the Czech Parliament for his many festival projects exploring Dvořák in America.

PEN World Voices Festival presents

AQUARIUS
A film by Kleber Mendonça Filho
(Brazil/France, 2016, 142 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)

A special screening of the powerful 2016 Brazilian film about the struggles of an independent woman, will be followed by a brief discussion of the protests against repression the film has ignited in Brazil. With Lucrecia Zappi, Elissa Schappell, and D.W. Gibson. Moderated by Eric M. B. Becker, editor of Words without Borders and co-editor of Women Writing Brazil (Pen America).

In Aquarius, acclaimed Brazilian writer-director Kleber Mendonça Filho (Neighboring Sounds) continues to examine the alienating effects of urban over-development in Recife, a Brazilian oceanfront city. Clara (Sônia Braga, Kiss of the Spiderwoman, Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands), a vibrant former music critic, avid swimmer, grandmother, cancer survivor, willing lover and widow with flowing tresses, is the only remaining apartment owner in a gracious older building targeted for demolition by ruthless luxury high-rise developers. As the builders tactics to remove Clara, become increasingly hostile, Clara proves to be a force to be reckoned with.

Mendonça Filho critiques life in contemporary Brazil, ranging from issues of social class, to the mistrust of government, to ageism, nepotism and corporate corruption, while looking fondly at the music, the places and the objects that we come to cherish in a very personal way. In Aquarius, this history encapsulated in a dwelling, that in and of itself, has been a silent witness to a woman’s entire life.

LA MALDAD
(Joshua Gil, Mexico, 2015, 74 min, digital. In Spanish with English subtitles. US Premiere)

As an act of revenge against the woman who abandoned him and as a way to exorcise his own demons, the rural poet and musician Rafael writes a screenplay in which, by means of twelve songs, he narrates the story of his own life. Raymundo, on the other hand, is a tired, depressed, and potentially suicidal man who approaches Rafael seeking financial support and solace. But Rafael, blinded by his ambition, betrays him in more ways than one, and travels to Mexico City in search of funds to produce his film. A playful and self-reflexive tale, La Maldad's intriguing and captivating atmosphere reveals the desolation that overwhelms its protagonists.

“La Maldad marks a promising if enigmatic feature debut from cinematographer turned director Joshua Gil. […] The movie works best as an abstract contemplation on life, death and the passing of time, recalling the more conceptual work of fellow Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas.” –Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter
 

On the second installment of the Indocumentales series, we feature two short films that highlight the impact of deportations on families followed by a conversation about the role of filmmaking and activism featuring Paola Mendoza and Theo Rigby.

Indocumentales is a film and conversation series exploring the immigrant experience. This series is presented in partnership with Cinema Tropical, and What Moves You?, and brings together educators, filmmakers, community activists, and the general public in conversation about current issues related to migration and inspired by groundbreaking films.

About the films:

FREE LIKE THE BIRDS
(Paola Mendoza, USA, 2016, 10 min. In In Spanish and English with English subtitles)
Six year old, Sophie Cruz, took the world by storm when she broke through the police barricades in Washington DC to give the Pope a letter. Her letter asked the Pope to convince President Obama and Congress to pass immigration reform. In that moment    Sophie became an Internet sensation. Free like the Birds is the intimate story her family fighting against the looming threat of deportation. Sophie is at the center of her family’s plight and that of millions of children like her. Through her innocence, her laughter and    through her understanding of what it means to be an immigrant and an American, we bear witness to her family striving for the American Dream.

SIN PAÍS / WITHOUT A COUNTRY
(Theo Rigby, USA, 2010 21 min. In Spanish and English with English subtitles)
In 1992, Sam and Elida Mejia left Guatemala during a violent civil war and brought their one-year old son, Gilbert, to California. The Mejia’s settled in the Bay Area, and for the past 17 years they have worked multiple jobs to support their family, paid their taxes, and saved enough to buy a home. They had two more children, Helen and Dulce, who are both U.S. citizens. Two years ago, immigration agents stormed the Mejia’s house looking for someone who didn’t live there. Sam, Elida, and Gilbert were all undocumented and became deeply entangled in the U.S. immigration system. Sin País begins two weeks before Sam and Elida’s scheduled deportation date. After a passionate fight to keep the family together, Sam and Elida are deported and take Dulce with them back to Guatemala. With intimate access and striking imagery, the Student Academy Award winner Sin País explores the complexities of the Mejia’s new reality of a separated family–parents without their children, and children without their parents.

This event is free and open to the public. ID is required to enter the building

VERANO
(José Luis Torres Leiva, Chile, 2011, 93 min, digital. In Spanish with English subtitles. New York Premiere)

The second fiction feature by José Luis Torres Leiva, one of the leading Chilean filmmakers of his generation whose work has had very limited exposure in the U.S. Verano is a choral drama set on a hot summer day in the south of Chile, where small events shape the lives of visitors and employees of an established thermal resort. A dozen characters experience the long vacation hours in nature – sleeping in the sun, learning how to drive, cleaning the house, kissing for the first time, swimming at night, or just walking and talking, while the day slowly unravels into small fragments of happiness and discovery. The cast includes Argentinean actress/singer Rosario Bléfari (who played the title role in Martín Rejtman’s Silvia Prieto), and Chilean documentary filmmaker Ignacio Agüero.

Presented as part of If You Can Screen It There: Premiering Contemporary Latin American Cinema.
 

(Carola Fuentes and Rafael Valdeavellano, Chile, 2016, 85 min. In English and Spanish with English subtitles)

The first installment of the Indocumentales series, which sponsors film screenings and conversations about migration. We will be presenting award-winning documentary film by Carola Fuentes and Rafael Valdeavellano Chicago Boys.

Indocumentales is a film and conversation series exploring the immigrant experience. This series is presented in partnership with Cinema Tropical, and What Moves You?, and brings together educators, filmmakers, community activists, and the general public in conversation about current issues related to migration and inspired by groundbreaking films.

The screening will be followed by a conversation with speakers to be announced.

After the 1973 coup which brought Augusto Pinochet to power, a group of Chilean economists were given the power to turn Chile into a laboratory for the world's most radical neo-liberal experiments.

These men, including Sergio de Castro and Rolf Lüders, both of whom would serve as ministers of finance during the Pinochet years, met in the 1950s at the University of Chicago, where they studied under the famed economist Milton Friedman, and the man who would become their mentor, Arnold Harberger.

Chicago Boys is their story from their student days through the dictatorship, told by the Chicago Boys themselves. Could their program for 'economic freedom,' such a drastic restructuring of the Chilean economy, only have been implemented by an authoritarian regime? What were they willing to do to achieve their goals? And how do they see the long-term results today?

Even though they do eventually acknowledge some of the darker sides of their work, Lüders "couldn't care less about inequality," de Castro feels bad for the torturers, and they all seem completely baffled by those Chileans who have filled the streets, for five years now, in protest against their legacy.
 

MAURO
(Hernán Rosselli, Argentina, 2014, 80 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. New York Premiere)

Hernán Rosselli’s auspicious debut feature film, a winner at the Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival (BAFICI), is a sharp character study following Mauro (played by Mauro Martínez), a metalworker who moonlights as a currency forger trading fake bills in the streets of Buenos Aires. He decides to set up a little printing shop with his roommate Luis and Luis’s pregnant girlfriend to produce counterfeit money. Yet things get complicated when he falls for the mysterious Paula.

“An engrossing X-ray of life in a southern barrio of Buenos Aires that doubles as a study of a society in crisis, Mauro ripples with quiet virtues. First-timer Rosselli has brought to his debut feature the same precision and craft as his troubled protagonist brings to his forgery, and the result is a slow-burning, intense item that exists somewhere on the increasingly blurred line between feature and documentary, harking back to established films such as Pablo Trapero’s Crane World and, indeed, to the Romanian New Wave in its dark, focused gaze and its unpatronizing treatment of social issues.” –Jonathan Holland, The Hollywood Reporter.

NAVAJAZO
A film by Ricardo Silva
(Mexico, 2014, 75 min. In Spanish and English with English subtitles. New York Premiere)

Winner of the Golden Leopard for Best Film in the Cineasti del Presente (Filmmakers of the Present) competition at the Locarno Film Festival, Ricardo Silva’s provocative and irreverent debut feature film is a quirky fiction-documentary hybrid set in the border city of Tijuana, where a series of peculiar outcasts (a junkie couple, a musician nicknamed “El Muerto,” and an American porn director, among others) struggle to survive in a hostile post-apocalyptic environment filled with drugs, sex, and violence. “Utterly mesmerizing in its perversion” (James Lattimer, Slant Magazine), Navajazo (which means “knife wound” in Spanish) confirms Silva as a filmmaker to watch, and Tijuana as an unlikely Mexican art scene.

Presented as part of 'If You Can Screen It There: Premiering Contemporary Latin American Cinema,' co-presented by Anthology Film Archives and Cinema Tropical. Programmed by Matías Piñeiro and Carlos A. Gutiérrez.

(Sanjay Rawal, USA, 201 4, 82 min. In English)

Food Chains reveals the human cost in our food supply and the complicity of large buyers of produce like fast food and supermarkets. Fast food is big, but supermarkets are bigger – earning $4 trillion globally. They have tremendous power over the agricultural system. Over the past 3 decades they have drained revenue from their supply chain leaving farmworkers in poverty and forced to work under subhuman conditions. Yet many take no responsibility for this. The narrative of the film focuses on an intrepid and highly lauded group of tomato pickers from Southern Florida – the Coalition of Immokalee Workers or CIW – who are revolutionizing farm labor. Their story is one of hope and promise for the triumph of morality over corporate greed – to ensure a dignified life for farm workers and a more humane, transparent food chain. For more information on the film, click here.

The film will be followed by a conversation with a panel of invited guests moderated by Shamina de Gonzaga of What Moves You?.

Panelists include:

Gustavo Setrini is Assistant Professor at NYU's Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health. A political scientist who studies sustainable agriculture and rural development, his research examines the opportunities and constraints that global markets offer for small farmers in developing countries. His recently completed book, Beyond Labels: How Local Institutions Shape Global Value Chains, studies the how Fairtrade and organic certification shape local development and small farmer organizations in Paraguay. He is also co-author of Looking Behind the Label: Global Industries and the Conscientious Consumer (Indiana University Press 2015). His research has also examined the role of small farmers organizations in supporting inclusive economic development in the Peruvian organic produce export industry and the Dominican Republic's cocoa industry. He is currently coordinating an impact evaluation of the US Agency for International Development's Inclusive Value Chain Project in Paraguay, utilizing Random Control Trail methodology.

The event is free and open to the public. A valid ID is required to enter the building.

Word Play
Programmed by Chris Stults & Genevieve Yue

One of the greatest documentarians of his generation, the Brazilian Eduardo Coutinho was cinema’s consummate interviewer. Playing is his underseen, layered examination of women’s lives, performance, storytelling, and the line between fiction and documentary. Women who answered a classified ad looking for subjects with interesting stories to tell talk with Coutinho about their (often tragic) life stories. As the film goes on, things become more slippery as it’s revealed that many of the women are some of Brazil’s finest actresses are using the original monologues as texts to perform. Wu Tsang opens the program with Shape of a Right Statement, where she re-performs a powerful address by autism rights activist Amanda Baggs.

Playing / Jogo de cena
(Eduardo Coutinho, Brazil, 2007, 105 mins, 35mm)

It was a strange ad in a Brazilian newspaper: an audition for a documentary. And yet a total of 83 women responded, though only a few of them ended up in the documentary itself. While being filmed, they recount painful life experiences about failed relationships, the loss of a child, and strained family ties. Playing not only foregrounds these tragic stories, but adds another layer of complexity when five well-known actresses, including Marília Pêra, Fernanda Torres, and Mary Sheyla are brought in to reperform these narratives. In doing so, Eduardo Coutinho examines the tension between a story and the way it is told, and the tenuous line separating life from performance. (International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam) 

Preceded by Shape of a Right Statement (Wu Tsang, USA, 2008, 5 min.)