ESSENTIALS: CINEMA FOR THE SEASON
Monday, November 12, 2012
, Posted by LATINO EVENTS Y TESPIS MAGAZINE at 10:23 PM
Sin muchos preámbulos, la cartelera cinematográfica está repleta de nuevas producciones esta temporada: On the Road, Skyfall, Tabu, Amour, The Life of Pi, The Girl, The Central Park Five, Burn, Holy Motors, Young & Wild, The Loneliest Planet, El Topo, un homenaje a los Armendáriz, magníficos documentales en el Doc NYC Festival y lo último en Cine de España en Spanish Cinema Now. Y hay más!. Dig in!.
LO NUEVO EN CARTELERA
* Doc NYC Festival > Hasta Noviembre 15 > IFC > DocNYC.
New York’s premier documentary festival, returns for its third year to the IFC Center in Greenwich Village and adds new screens at Chelsea’s SVA Theatre, with an expanded line-up of films and panels. Over 125 documentary makers and special guests are expected in person to present their New York premieres and, in many cases, US or world premieres.
Several Latino theme documentaries are part of the festival: Iceberg Slim:Portrait of a Pimp, Shenandoah, La Camioneta, The Central Park Five, Crooked Lines, The Needle y Searching for Sugar Man.
Lorenzo (aka Lencho), is a 30-year-old artist and graffiti artist who returns to Guatemala after living for a decade in New York. Eager to bring artistic expression to his home country silenced by over 30 years of civil war, Lencho assembles a collective of artists to produce public art projects with social impact. As their first activity, the group organizes a mural, hip hop, poetry and graffiti art festival in Rabinal, a small indigenous town in the Guatemalan highlands. The group’s work draws the interest of the chief of a secret “social cleansing” squad of the national police designed to squash dissension and organizing among the youth. As Lencho labors to coordinate the components of the festival, he finds himself increasingly haunted by memories of his father’s death, a journalist killed during the army dictatorship.
* BURN: One Year on the Front Lines to Save Detroit > Directed by Tom Putnam & Brenna Sanchez > En Cartelera > En NYC > Burn.
Detroit is burning. With vast stretches of forsaken buildings left as kindling, the highest arson rate in the country, and a budget crisis of epic proportions, this action-packed documentary takes us to the heart of a once-roaring industrial mecca to meet the men and women charged with saving a city that many have written off as dead. BURN spends a year with the nation’s busiest and worst-funded fire department. Each of the firefighters has a story to tell, and through their eyes we see hope rise from the ashes in the form of the brave few who refuse to give up. Heineken Audience Award Winner for Best Documentary, 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.
* CAFÉ DE FLORE >Written and Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée > Opens November 9 in NY (Angelika ) and Los Angeles > Café.
“Cafe de Flore” is a love story about people separated by time and place but connected in profound and mysterious ways. Atmospheric, fantastical, tragic and hopeful, the film chronicles the parallel fates of Jacqueline, a young mother with a disabled son in 1960s Paris, and Antoine, a recently divorced, successful DJ in present day Montreal. What binds the two stories together is love - euphoric, obsessive, tragic, youthful, timeless love.
* THE GIRL > Directed by David Riker > Noviembre 15 > Walter Reade Theater, Lincoln Center > Limited release on Dec. 14 > Girl.
More than a decade after bursting onto the scene with his acclaimed debut feature The City (La Ciudad)—a quartet of stories about Spanish-speaking immigrants trying to make it in New York—director David Riker travels south of the border for his long-awaited follow-up, The Girl. In a performance of staggering power, Abbie Cornish (Bright Star, SevenPsychopaths) stars as Ashley, a single Austin mother and recovering alcoholic trying to hold her life together after losing custody of her son and her job at a Wal Mart-esque big box store. Desperate for cash, Ashley offers her services as a “coyote” for a Mexican family trying to cross the border illegally. But when the attempted crossing ends in tragedy, Ashley finds herself playing surrogate mother to a lost and confused young girl desperate to find whatever family she has left. The harrowing, moving and ultimately hopeful journey that ensues takes us deep into the heart of Mexico, and of a woman trying to make amends for her troubled past.
* Cinema Tropical's Music + Film Series > Voices from Latin America > Nov. 15 - Dec. 13 > 92Y TRIBECA > > Voces.
Cinema Tropical's "Music + Film Series" celebrates Carnegie Hall’s upcoming concert series Voices from Latin America with screenings of documentaries that honor the best of Latin American music and its rich diversity and legacy.
The music and cultures of Brazil, Cuba, Mexico and Argentina will be represented through the work of iconic artists from each country. Question-and-answer sessions with special guests follow each screening, along with live performances at Cafe 92YTribecca. Co-presented with Cinema Tropical. Programmed by Mary Jane Marcasiano.
+ Showing: Till the Last Drop…My Love/Hasta el Último Trago Corazón (Nov. 15); Café de los Maestros ( Nov. 29); Music According to Tom Jobim (Dec. 6); Calle 54 (Dec.13).
* Homenaje a los Armendáriz > Instituto Cervantes > El crimen del padre Amaro > Noviembre 21 > Armendáriz
Un joven sacerdote recién ordenado convive con un grupo de sacerdotes que no ocultan su ambivalencia ante asuntos como el celibato y la corrupción. Influido por el entorno, su poca fuerza de voluntad lo lleva a entablar una relación con Amelia, una jovencita que no duda en enamorarse del joven sacerdote. En español con subtítulos en inglés.
+ Also: The Conqueror ( Dec. 5) and Gringo Viejo ( Dec. 19).
* SKYFALL > Directed by Sam Mendes > With Javier Bardem > En Cartelera.
Bond's loyalty to M is tested as her past comes back to haunt her. As MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost.
* LIFE OF PI > Directed by Ang Lee > Cinematography by Claudio Miranda > En Cartelera Noviembre 21 > Pi.
Based on the book that has sold more than seven million copies and spent years on the bestseller list, Academy Award winner Lee's LIFE OF PI takes place over three continents, two oceans, many years, and a wide world of imagination.
Lee’s vision, coupled with game-changing technological breakthroughs, has turned a story long thought un-filmable into a totally original cinematic event and the first truly international all-audience motion picture. LIFE OF PI follows a young man who survives a disaster at sea and is hurtled into an epic journey of adventure and discovery. While marooned on a lifeboat, he forms an amazing and unexpected connection with the ship¹s only other survivor…a fearsome Bengal tiger.
* FLIGHT > Directed by Robert Zemeckis > En Cartelera.
Triumphantly returning to live-action filmmaking for the first time since Cast Away 12 years ago, Robert Zemeckis teams with Denzel Washington on the tense and edgy thriller FLIGHT. In a brilliant, heart-stopping sequence, pilot Whip Whitacker (Washington), after an all-nighter of booze, sex and drugs, boldly guides a crippled airliner to a crash landing that nearly all the passengers survive. Although he is acclaimed as a hero, the legal, moral and ethical aspects of Whip’s behavior before and after the accident are much more ambiguous than initially meet the public eye. A study of addiction far more complex than the norm, FLIGHT is a compelling drama anchored by a great performance from one of our most distinguished actors. John Goodman, Don Cheadle, Melissa Leo and Kelly Reilly offer vibrant supporting turns in what is certain to be one of the most talked-about movies of the season.
* HOLY MOTORS > Directed by Leos Carax > Con Eva Méndez > En Cartelera.
This unclassifiable, expansive movie from Leos Carax (Lovers on the Bridge)—his first feature in 13 years—operates on the exhilarating logic of dreams and emotions. After a prologue in which Carax himself, clad in pajamas, walks through a corridor that leads to a theater full of silent spectators, HOLY MOTORS segues to actor Denis Lavant, Carax’s longtime collaborator, playing a mysterious man named Oscar who inhabits 11 different characters over the course of a single day. This shape-shifter is shuttled from appointment to appointment in Paris in a white-stretch limo driven by the soignée Edith Scob (EYES WITHOUT A FACE); not on the itinerary is an unplanned reunion with Kylie Minogue. To summarize the film any further would be to take away some of its magic; the most accurate précis comes from its own creator, who aptly described HOLY MOTORS after its world premiere in Cannes as “a film about a man and the experience of being alive.” An Indomina release.
* THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE > Directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns & David McMahon > En Cartelera > En NYC Nov. 23 - Dec 6 > IFC Center.
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Photo courtesy of NY-Daily News
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In 1989, five black and Latino teenagers were arrested and charged for brutally attacking and raping a white female jogger in Central Park. News media swarmed the case, calling it “the crime of the century.” But the truth about what really happened didn’t become clear until after the five had spent years in prison for a crime they didn’t commit. This story of injustice finally gets the telling it deserves. The film recently made headlines when lawyers for New York City attempted to subpoena its outtakes for an ongoing lawsuit. A story whose aftershocks continue to shape the city, this promises to be one of the most high-profile documentaries of the year. (119 min). In person: Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David McMahon and members of the Central Park Five.
* Young and Wild > Directed by Marialy Rivas > En Cartelera Noviembre 30 > En NYC Nov. 30 - Dec. 6 > IFC Center.
A pretty 17-year-old from a strict evangelical family, Daniela is finding it hard to reconcile her raging hormones with the rules ofher religion. With no other outlet for her desire, Daniela taps into a rampant underground network of other teens through her sexually charged blog. Director Rivas’s handsome debut is a lively coming-of-age story of a young woman who, torn between the burning fires of religious fervor and youthful sexual energy, refuses to make choices that limit her pleasure.
* El Topo > Directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky. México, 1970 > Noviembre 30 > IFC Center > TOPO.
Jodorowsky’s legendary, notorious cult hit essentially created the genre of the midnight movie — a spectacle so stunning and bizarre that normal hours couldn’t contain it. Incorporating influences from tarot to the Bible to surrealism into a mind-blowing western, Jodorowsky cast himself as the leather-clad gunman, El Topo (‘the mole’), who wanders through a desert strewn with mystical symbols on an unnamed quest, leaving blood and carnage in his wake. Declared a masterpiece by no less than John Lennon himself, EL TOPO tops even the most outrageous aesthetic experiments of its radical era and remains unmatched in its provocations and strange beauty. Long unavailable, EL TOPO is presented in a gorgeous new restoration personally overseen by Jodorowsky.
* 5x Favela, Now by Ourselves > Lincoln Center > Diciembre 6 > 5x.
ImageNation and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, in association with CrossPath Culture and Acrobeat, present a celebration of Brazilian culture that includes a live performance by Brazil’s own Beatriz Azevedo, photography by Brazilian artist Andre Cypriano and Cannon Hersey, and a complete screening of the compilation film 5x Favela, Now by Ourselves, followed by a reception. This evening is sponsored by the Brazilian Consulate.
* SPANISH CINEMA NOW 2012 > Diciembre 7 al 14 > Walter Reade Theater > Lincoln Center > Spanish.
One of the Film Society’s longest-running and most popular programs returns with another comprehensive look at the best from the past year in new Spanish cinema, including Blancanieves (photo), Spain’s official Foreign Language Oscar submission, Sons of the Clouds, the latest from Javier Bardem, and a special sidebar devoted to the surrealist master Luis Buñuel.
* ON THE ROAD > Directed by Walter Salles > En Cartelera > En NYC Diciembre 21 > IFC Center.
Kerouac’s beloved Beat epic, one of the most iconic and influential of all American novels, finally comes to the big screen in this jazzy, freewheeling adaptation from Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries) and executive producer Francis Ford Coppola. Aspiring writer Sal Paradise (Sam Riley) falls under the spell of “the mad ones”: intoxicating ex-con Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund) and his seductive wife Marylou (Kristen Stewart). The three hit the road to discover the world—and themselves. Featuring Kirsten Dunst, Amy Adams, Viggo Mortensen and Steve Buscemi.
* AMOUR > Direced by Michael Haneke > En Cartelera > En NYC Diciembre 19 > Film Forum.
The universally acclaimed winner of the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, AMOUR is arguably Michael Haneke’s crowning achievement to date, a portrait of a couple dealing with the ravages of old age that is as compassionate as it is merciless. The great veteran French actors Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva are staggering as Georges and Anne, long-married music teachers living out their final years surrounded by the comforts of books and music in their warm Paris apartment. After Anne suffers a stroke, Georges attends to her with firmness shot through with love. The underlying unease, as well as some abrupt surprises, are hardly unexpected from Haneke, who challenges the viewer to confront the experience of his characters as directly as he does. But he rewards the effort with a film that is all the more moving for its complete avoidance of sentimentality. An unquestionable masterpiece. A Sony Pictures Classics release.
* TABU > Directed by Miguel Gomes > Portugal > En Cartelera > En NYC Diciembre 26 > Film Forum.
The ghosts of F.W. Murnau, Luis Buñuel, Joseph Cornell and Jack Smith hover above Miguel Gomes’s third feature—an exquisite, absurdist entry in the canon of surrealist cinema.
Shot in ephemeral black-and-white celluloid, TABU is movie-as-dream—an evocation of irrational desires, extravagant coincidences, and cheesy nostalgia that nevertheless is grounded in serious feeling and beliefs, even anti-colonialist politics. There is a story, which is delightful to follow and in which the cart comes before the horse: the first half is set in contemporary Lisbon, the second, involving two of the same characters, in a Portuguese colony in the early 1960s. “Be My Baby” belted in Portuguese, a wandering crocodile, and a passionate, ill-advised coupling seen through gently moving mosquito netting make for addled movie magic. The winner of the Alfred Bauer Prize (for a work of particular innovation) and FIPRESCI (International Film Critics) award at this year’s Berlin Film Festival.
MORE NEAR YOU
EN CARTELERA - DVD - ONLINE
Alex and Nica are young, in love and engaged to be married. The summer before their wedding, they are backpacking in the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia. The couple hire a local guide to lead them on a camping trek, and the three set off into a wilderness that is both overwhelmingly open and frighteningly closed. Walking for hours, they trade anecdotes, play games to pass the time of moving through space. And then, a momentary misstep, a gesture that takes only two or three seconds, a gesture that's over almost as soon as it begins. Once it is done, it threatens to undo everything the couple believed about each other and about themselves. All the while, they are not alone. They are always with the guide, who witnesses their every move.
In 1968, there emerged from Detroit a charismatic Mexican-American singer/songwriter named Rodriguez, who had attracted a local following with his mysterious presence, soulful melodies and prophetic lyrics. Searching for Sugar Man tells the story of the greatest '70s US rock icon who never was, how he was rediscovered in South Africa and finally became the legende he always deserved to be. A story of hope, inspiration and the power of music.
* HERMANO > Directed by Marcel Rasquin > Nationwide > On DVD December 4.
Hermano tells a simple and powerful story about two kids raised together as brothers: Daniel (Fernando Moreno) and Julio (Eliú Armas) – who struggle to become professional soccer players. Both exceptional players, in La Ceniza slum, the opportunity of a lifetime arrives when a headhunter for the Caracas Football Club invites them to a try-out with the team. But their life in the slum interferes and a tragedy shakes them, forcing them to make a choice: the unity of their family or their lifelong dream?
Madrid, 1987 ...is a two-character story with a verbose discourse on writing, journalism, careerism, aging and politics. Shot mostly within a very constricted space, the story follows an older, celebrated journalist Miguel (José Sacristán) who meets the beautiful and coy journalism-student Angela (María Valverde) to give an interview - but becomes intent upon seducing her. They end up spending time in the most unusual manner ...discussing literature, prose and career trajectories ...gradually divulging little insights into their own selves as we start to understand the old journalist's cynicism and the young protégé's intentions.
* A WHISPER TO A ROAR.
A Whisper to a Roar tells the heroic stories of courageous democracy activists in five countries around the world – Egypt, Malaysia, Ukraine, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. From student leaders to prime ministers and heads of state, these activists share their compelling personal stories of struggle, past and present, with their countries’ oppressive regimes. Shot over three years and completed in February 2012, the film was inspired by the work of Stanford University’s Larry Diamond, author of “The Spirit of Democracy” and Director of Stanford University’s Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. It was funded by The Moulay Hicham Foundation, whose benefactor, Prince Moulay Hicham of Morocco, is a renowned public intellectual and democracy advocate, particularly in regards to the Middle East.
* BEL BORBA AQUI > A film by Burt Sun and André Costantini > Brazil, 2012.
Known as “The People’s Picasso,” for 35 years Bel Borba has transformed the face of his hometown of Salvador de Bahia, Brazil – a historic city that is 500-years-old – with beautiful, grand scale and awe-inspiring art including sculpture, painting, murals and mosaic. Working with tiles, steel, sand, clay, and an eclectic mélange of recycled material including Coca Cola bottles and wood from Salvador’s famed Savaro boats, Borba’s ubiquitous public works reflect his feverishly ebullient personality and unbridled love of community.
With an evocative Brazilian soundtrack and lush cinematography that exposes the lavish colors of Salvador, BEL BORBA AQUI explores the intense and intimate relationship between this unique city – a fusion of European, African, and Native Indian cultures – and her beloved native son.
* Las Acacias > Directed by Pablo Giorgelli, winner of the Camara d'Or for Best First Film at last year's Cannes Film Festival.
Ruben, a lonely middle-aged trucker who's picking up a load of lumber in Paraguay to take back to Buenos Aires, grudgingly agrees to take two passengers: Jacinta, a young Aboriginal mother and her five-month-old baby, Anahi. At first glance, the 1500 kilometer journey seems very long, both for Jacinta, who hopes to find work with the help of her cousin in Argentina, as well as for the surly trucker, whose routine is disrupted. But along the way, Ruben, Jacinta and Anahi slowly get to know one another, and the usually quiet Ruben gradually opens up.
* Neighboring Sounds > Directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho.
A thrilling debut from a breakout talent, Neighboring Sounds delves into the lives of a group of prosperous middle-class families residing on a quiet street in Recife, close to a low-income neighborhood. The private security firm hired to police the street becomes the catalyst for an exploration of the neighbors’ discontents and anxieties—their feelings exacerbated by the palpable unease of a society that remains unreconciled to its troubled past and present inequities. Meticulously constructed, with unexpected compositions and arresting cuts, this ensemble film is compulsive viewing; you’re never quite sure where things are headed as it builds imperceptibly toward its stunning payoff. With his unmistakable formal gifts and acute eye and ear for the push and pull of modern life, Kleber Mendonça Filho represents the arrival of a major filmmaker.
* Pelotero (Ballplayer) > Directed by Ross Finkel, Trevor Martin and Jonathan Paley > DVD available now >> PELOTERO.
This compelling documentary narrated by John Leguizamo is a gritty look inside the world of Major League Baseball (MLB) training camps in the Dominican Republic. Miguel Angel and Jean Carlos are two of the top prospects at an MLB training camp, and they are both about to turn 16, which means they can be signed to an MLB farm team and ultimately move up to the majors. Filmmakers Ross Finkel, Trevor Martin and Jonathan Paley take you inside this never-before-seen world for an up-close and personal look at the cost of the American dream.
* TO ROME WITH LOVE > Directed by Woody Allen. With Penélope Cruz.
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