Athena Film Festival
February 29-March 3, 2024 at Barnard College
HUMMINGBIRDS
(Silvia del Carmen Castaños and Estefanía "Beba" Contreras, USA, 2023, 78 min. In English)
“I want to remember this time, last time, and next time. I want to remember it all with no parts missing because I appreciate even the bad times.” In Laredo, a city in southern Texas on the Mexican border, best friends Silvia and Beba know that the long summer nights of their youth cannot last forever. Their hang-out spots are so familiar but, stuck in an immigration process over which deportation hangs as a constant possibility, home still seems a fragile concept. Between bars, drive-thrus, friends’ couches, and the borderlands, they confront the stresses of survival, the future, and community building. For them, this means protest action for legal abortion and against border control abuses, in a politically divided America. But the dusty half-light is also a time for poetry and dreams. Their laughter and creative expression cement a sense of solidarity and belonging in togetherness.
COPA 71
(Rachel Ramsay and James Erskine, United Kingdom, 2023, 90 min. In English, Spanish, Italian, and French with English Subtitles)
Athena’s Opening Night Film and New York Premiere!
It is August 1971. Soccer teams from England, Argentina, Mexico, France, Denmark, and Italy have gathered at Mexico City's sun-drenched Azteca Stadium. The scale of the tournament is monumental: lavish sponsorship, extensive TV coverage, merchandise on every street corner, and crowds of over 100,000 roaring fans turn this historic stadium into a cauldron of noise match after match. A fawning media treat the players like rock stars. The atmosphere is reminiscent of the greatest moments in international soccer history.
But this is a tournament unlike anything that's happened before. The players on the pitch are all women. And it's likely you've never even heard of it. This is Copa '71, the unofficial Women's World Cup. Dismissed by both the governing body and domestic soccer associations around the world, this event had been sidelined in history. Until now.
MADELAINE
(Leonor Zúñiga, Nicaragua, 2022, 28 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
New York Premiere!
Madelaine Caracas, a 20-year-old Nicaraguan painter, lives her life waiting for the next time she has to pack her things and move to a new temporary home. After a year of not painting, Madelaine decides to use her first-ever art exhibition to confront the violent events that pushed her into exile.
Saturday, March 2, 6 pm at Lehman Auditorium and streaming from February 29 to March 3
GOING TO MARS: THE NIKKI GIOVANNI PROJECT
(Michèle Stephenson and Joe Brewster, USA, 2023, 102 min. In English)
"I say, the trip to Mars can only be understood through Black Americans /… When we go to Mars… / It's Middle Passage." Poet and activist Nikki Giovanni—witty, no-nonsense, brilliant—resists the conventional in life and art, more than ever at age 80. Promoting a new poetry collection while fighting breast cancer and reconciling with her son, Giovanni also resists the straightforward documentary probe—"I remember what is important and I make up the rest." Afro-Latina director Michèle Stephenson and Joe Brewster (American Promise) craft a rich, inventive portrait imbued with Giovanni’s poetry (voiced by Taraji P. Henson), intercut with hilariously spiky speaking gig highlights (re: her mastectomy + new hearing aid, "I took a tit off and added an ear") and archival clips, including Giovanni’s legendary 1971 conversation with James Baldwin. Winner of the 2023 Sundance Grand Jury Prize (U.S. Documentary).
