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.