Mexico on the Hudson Panel:
Panel: Portraying the Mexican Experience in New York City from Outside the Community - A Conversation with Three Non-Mexican Directors

Directors David Riker (La Ciudad), Jim McKay (En el Séptimo Día) and Alexis Gambis (Son of Monarchs) are the creators of three landmark films on the Mexican experience in New York City. Join us in conversation as the trio discusses their research, methodologies, and artistic processes in the making of their groundbreaking films as well as the challenges they faced as directors occupying spaces outside the community itself. Moderated by Pilar Dirickson Garrett, Associate Director, Cinema Tropical.
Thursday, June 17, 5pm - 7:30pm on Facebook Live

Panelists:

Alexis Gambis is a French-Venezuelan filmmaker and biologist. His films combine documentary and fiction, often embracing animal perspectives and experimenting with new forms of scientific storytelling. In 2008, he founded the Imagine Science Film Festival that recently celebrated its 13th year of showcasing science in film from around the world. In 2016, he launched the sister portal Labocine. Coined the "Netflix for science," the VOD platform provides a virtual ecosystem to experience science cinema in all its flavors by hybridizing forms, and fostering a dialogue between scientists, artists and educators. His latest feature film, Son of Monarchs (2020) dissects through issues of identity, (im)migration and animal/human evolution. This Mexican-American bilingual allegorical drama had its home premiere in October 2020 at the 18th Festival Internacional de Cine de Morelia and International Premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. The film has been awarded 2021 Alfred P. Sloan Prize, awarded every year to a film at the Sundance Film Festival that focuses on science or technology as a theme, or depicts a scientist, engineer, or mathematician as a major character. As a recipient of the 2019 TED Fellowship, his TED Talk makes a case for more science in fiction to humanize the scientist in the public eye and to inform a broader audience on the interplay of research advancements, scientific representations and social issues.

Jim McKay is a filmmaker and co-founder, along with Michael Stipe, of C-Hundred Film Corp. He has directed and produced a full-length documentary, Lighthearted Nation; a feature-length concert film, R.E.M.'s Tourfilm; and music videos for Rollins Band, Chickasaw Mudd Puppies, Pylon, R.E.M., and others. McKay co-wrote and directed Girls Town, his first feature film in 1995. His second feature was Our Song, which premiered at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival, played at New Directors/New Films, and was released theatrically by IFC Films. McKay's third feature, Everyday People, was the Opening Night Film of New Directors/New Films in 2004 and played at festivals around the U.S. before showing on HBO. His fourth feature, Angel Rodriguez, co-written with Hannah Weyer, premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2005, had its U.S. premiere at MoMA and then showed on HBO. His fifth feature, En el Séptimo Día (On the Seventh Day) premiered as the Centerpiece Film at BAMcinemaFest 2017, in the International Competition at Locarno Festival 2017, and was released in the U.S. in 2018 by Cinema Guild. McKay served as a producer on films such as American Movie (Chris Smith), The Sleepy Time Gal (Christopher Munch), La Boda and Escuela (Hannah Weyer), and Mosquita Y Mari (Aurora Guerrero). McKay was a Rockefeller Fellow in 2003 and a Guggenheim Fellow in 2004. In 2005, he was a recipient of the Lincoln Center Martin E. Segal Award. In 2019, he received the Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award for En el Séptimo Día.

David Riker is an award-winning director, screenwriter, and editor, working in both fiction and documentary forms. His debut feature, La Ciudad (The City), premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1998 to critical acclaim, and won awards at South by Southwest, San Sebastian, Havana, and the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, among others. His second feature, The Girl, starring Abbie Cornish and Will Patton, won the NHK Award for Best American Screenplay at Sundance in 2009. As a screenwriter, Riker has received a number of prestigious awards including the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance in 2008 for his work with Alex Rivera on Sleep Dealer. Most recently, he co-wrote with Jeremy Scahill the documentary Dirty Wars about the global war on terror. The film was nominated in 2014 for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, as well as the Writers Guild of America award for Best Documentary Screenplay. The recipient of Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Annenberg Fellowships for his work as both writer and director, Riker also teaches screenwriting and directing, most recently at Columbia University’s Graduate Film Program. He has also taught directing and writing workshops at universities across the country as well as in Mexico, Cuba, and at FiSahara, the only film and film education festival that takes place in a refugee camp. He earned an MFA in Film from New York University in 1996.

Pilar Dirickson Garrett, moderator, is Associate Director of Cinema Tropical, the New York-based media arts non-profit that has become the leading presenter of Latin American cinema in the U.S. She is a graduate of New York University, holding a joint Master’s of Arts in Latin American and Caribbean Studies with a concentration in Museum Studies. The majority of her personal work focuses on intersections of Brazilian political history, histories of thought, and processes of nation-making with mid-twentieth-century artistic practice. During her time at NYU, Dirickson Garrett served as a fellow of the Graduate School of Arts and Science and as a Graduate Associate of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Through her work with Cinema Tropical she has partnered with such cultural organizations as Film at Lincoln Center, the CLACS NYU, Anthology Film Archives, New York Botanical Garden, Brasil Summerfest and more. Before relocating to New York City, she worked as Curatorial Assistant in the Department of African and South American Arts and Cultures at the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, BC. Dirickson Garrett holds a Bachelor of Arts in honors History from the University of British Columbia.