In Celebration of Dominican Cinema!
April 2—5
A multi-day cultural and academic event celebrating recent achievements in contemporary Dominican arthouse and docu-fiction cinema, featuring guests Victoria Linares Villegas and Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias, two of the most internationally successful Dominican film directors.
Presented by the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute, the Undergraduate Program in Film and Television at NYU, and the Media & Communication Arts Department at City College, and co-presented by NYU Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies (CLACS); Office of Global Inclusion (OGI); Tisch Initiative for Creative Research; Cinema Tropical.
Tuesday, April 2
King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center at NYU, 53 Washington Square S., New York City
12pm: Screening of RAMONA
(Victoria Linares Villegas, Dominican Republic, 2023, 82 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Feeling unprepared for her upcoming role as a 15-year-old pregnant girl from the outskirts of Santo Domingo, an actor from a more affluent background, Camila, decides to sit down with pregnant young girls for inspiration. Yet in the process, as the sorority of 15 teens candidly recount their realities on-camera, little by little they unexpectedly influence the film’s production, taking it into unchartered territory. Initially presenting itself as a behind-the-scenes making-of, Ramona quickly becomes a hazy postmodernist mix of telenovela pastiche, observational documentary, filmed rehearsals, cinéma vérité and theatre that constantly plays with the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction, reality and artifice.
2pm: Masterclass with director Victoria Linares Villegas. Click here to register
Thursday, April 4
King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center at NYU, 53 Washington Square S., New York City
10am: Screening of COCOTE
(Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias, 2017, 106 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
A rapturous crime fable set in the Dominican Republic, Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias’ 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.
12pm: Masterclass with Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias. Click here to register
Production Lab, 16 Washington Place, New York City
2pm: Reception with Dominican food
3pm: Roundtable with directors Victoria Linares Villegas and Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias, moderated by Dominican singer-songwriter and writer Rita Indiana. Click here to register
Friday, April 5
The City College of New York, Sheppard Hall, 259 Convent Avenue (room 292), New York City
3pm: Screening of RAMONA (2023), followed by a Q&A with director Victoria Linares Villegas. Click here to register
6pm: Screening of COCOTE (2017), followed by a Q&A with director Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias, moderated by Prof. Jerry Carlson. Click here to register
About the filmmakers:
Victoria Linares Villegas made her feature-length film debut with the documentary It Runs in the Family / Lo que se hereda, which screened at various film festivals, including the True/False Film Fest, BFI Flare and the Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival and won her the Youth Jury AwardCenter for Media, Culture, and History for Best New Director at the Vancouver Latin American Film Festival. Her most recent films include Cállate Niña [Stay Quiet], Mi Madre Me Tiene Rabia [My Mother Resents Me], and Ramona, which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias studied creative writing and media art at the Universidad Iberoamericana (UNIBE) then moved to Buenos Aires to study film in 2006. He turned to experimental cinema at the Edinburgh College of Art from 2008–9. In 2009, his first film, She Said He Walks, was awarded a BAFTA Award. He continued his art education at CalArts in Los Angeles, graduating with an MFA in Film / Video (2011–14). His film Cocote won the Special Jury prize at Locarno in 2017 and was a part of New Directors/New Films in New York. His latest film, Pepe, premiered at the 74th edition of the Berlin Film Festival, the first Dominican film ever to ever form part of the official competition at the Berlinale. The jury awarded Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias the Silver Bear for Best Director, becoming the first Latin American filmmaker to win that award. Blending genres and styles, Pepe was the most “unclassifiable” film in the selection, according to the Berlinale’s Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian. The film tells the story of a young hippopotamus who was killed years after being taken from his homeland in Africa to reside in the private zoo of drug lord Pablo Escobar in Colombia but returned in the form of a ghost.
