Margaret Mead Film Festival
American Museum of Natural History
October 19-22
Latino films co-presented with Cinema Tropical
BRIMSTONE & GLORY
(Viktor Jakovleski, USA, 2017, 67 min. In Spanish with English subtitiles)
Once a year, an annual pyrotechnics festival erupts through the small city of Tultepec, Mexico, transforming it into a blaze of sparks and flames. In the climactic "burning of the bulls," the bravest participants run amid toritos, bull-shaped floats rigged with fireworks that rain burning ash and light on the city.
Opening night, Thursday, October 19, 7pm
THE CLOUD FOREST
(Bosque de niebla, Mónica Álvarez Franco, Mexico, 2016, 91 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
New York Premiere / Director in Attendance
Sometimes, ordinary people can sometimes create extraordinary positive change. In a small community in the Mexican tropics, sixteen families redesign their lives to create an entirely self-sustaining and independent society, hoping to save their sacred and fog-laden land. The Cloud Forest weaves this community's singular quest with gorgeous scenes of their endangered surroundings.
DICK VERDULT - IT IS TRUE BUT NOT HERE
(Luuk Bouwman, Netherlands, 2017, 70 min.)
U.S. Premiere / Director in Attendance
Dick Verdult is a shape-shifting, multifaceted artist, and musician. He was born in the Netherlands, grew up in Guatemala, and studied film in Paris in the aftermath of the ’68 student revolts. His diversity of experience has led him to create art that defies categorization. Whimsical, elusive, and unshakably cheerful, Verdult has forged a path for himself that inspires and delights at every turn.
BRASÍLIA: LIFE AFTER DESIGN
(Bart Simpson, Canada/UK, 2017, 88 min.)
U.S. Premiere / Director in Attendance
Brasília is a bold urban experiment and a city unlike any other. Conceived in 1956 on an uninhabited site in the geographic center of Brazil, the city was intended to be a fresh start for the new political order, free from the messy colonial baggage of the previous capital, Rio de Janeiro. This atmospheric tribute to the sights and sounds of Brasília’s large-scale modernist achievement pans across urban vistas and images of city dwellers moving through the enormous spaces between buildings.
