Cine: 'VIOLA' en Cartelera.
About: Matías Piñeiro is one of contemporary Argentine cinema’s most sensuous and sophisticated new voices. In his latest film, Viola, he ingeniously fashions out of Shakepeare’sTwelfth Night a seductive roundelay among young actors and lovers in present-day Buenos Aires. Mixing melodrama with sentimental comedy, philosophical conundrum with matters of the heart, Viola bears all the signature traits of a Piñeiro film: serpentine camera movements and slippages of language, an elliptical narrative and a playful confusion of reality and artifice.
CINEMA: YOUR GUIDE TO #LATINBEAT 2013
“It is exciting to see that as a group, Latin American films express more of a sense of identity beyond national borders, and more of a sense of interconnectedness than in the past, reflecting what is occurring in political/social/economic arenas. I hope this year's lineup provides an opportunity to witness some of this change in the region as it unfolds,” says Film Society of Lincoln Center Programmer, Marcela Goglio.
Highlights of the 2013 Latinbeat includes LA PAZ by prolific Argentinian filmmaker, Santiago Loza, who has showcased his work at the festival since 2000; a beautifully illustrated animation film, ANINA, based on the 2003 book Anina Yatay Salas; and an unusual genre to Latin America: action movies, which will be represented with Ernesto Díaz Espinoza’s BRING ME THE HEAD OF THE MACHINE GUN WOMAN, a hilarious tribute to Peckinpah’s similarly titled 1974 film, but with a video game aesthetic and structure.
Latinbeat is also welcoming back several filmmakers with new films, including Alicia Scherson, whose third feature (her first two films were showcased in earlier editions of Latinbeat) THE FUTURE is a faithful rendition of Una novelita lumpen, the first of Roberto Bolaño’s literary works to be adapted for cinema. In Mercedes Moncada’s fourth feature, MAGICAL WORDS (BREAKING A SPELL), delivers a poignant and engaging personal perspective on the Nicaraguan revolution (her first two films were showcased at past editions of Latinbeat). Another welcome return is director Enrique Rivero, whose film PARQUE VIA played New Directors/New Films in 2009, and who will now show his new film NEVER DIE.
Here is the list of participating films and times:
* La Paz (Opening Night)
Santiago Loza, Argentina, 2013; 73m
North American Premiere!
La Paz is the story of Liso, a young man who emerges from a psychiatric institution and tries to re-adapt to daily life in the universe of his middle class family and neighborhood. Though everything seems difficult, under the surface and very subtly things start to change for him. Quietly and slowly, Loza draws us into Liso's inner plight as he connects again with the outside world and searches for a new balance, a kind of inner peace, while exposing what have become, for him, the limiting rituals of a comfortable middle class life. Also an influential playwright in the nascent indie theater scene of Buenos Aires, Loza is a prolific filmmaker whose films (showcased in Latinbeat since 2000) have remained faithful to a very personal kind of aesthetic/search. He was one of the very first of the so -called "New Argentine Cinema" filmmakers, with a career as discreet and quietly loaded as his films. His films are a space for challenging and uncommon aesthetic exploration—in how to convey emotions visually, using silence as pulse of the story. The result is clear and poignant storytelling devoid of any excess in performance or staging, in which his affection and deep understanding of his characters reach out to the spectator. To quote Marcelo Panozzo, program director of this year’s Bafici: "La Paz’s tone is its true triumph: it’s something related to patience, a rare feature in both cinema and life".
July 12 at 7:00pm
July 14 at 6:50pm
*Director in attendance at both screenings.
* AninA
Alfredo Soderguit, Uruguay/Colombia, 2013; 82m
US Premiere!
The palindromically named Anina Yatay Salas lives in Montevideo and attends elementary school, where her classmates make fun of her because of her name. She has a best friend, but also a girl with whom she doesn’t get along at all: Yisel. One day she fights with Yisel, and so her problems begin: the school principal gives them both an intriguing punishment, a suspended detention. Anina spends her days in that suspension, a period of time with particular tension and questions, and her voiceover guides us as she comments on life with her nice parents, meals, the eyes of gossipy neighbors, homework, and childhood feelings, joys, and fears. Featuring a particularly beautiful animation that perfectly integrates the movement of the characters with background settings that are worthy of illustrated children’s books (AninA is based on the 2003 book Anina Yatay Salas), this moving animated film has the homemade flavor of a warm and happy afternoon tea on a rainy day (Bafici ’13)
July 13 at 11am
July 14 at 11am
* Avanti Popolo
Michael Wahrmann, Brazil, 2012; 72m
North American Premiere!
In this layered and formally subversive first feature, iconic (and recently deceased) Brazilian filmmaker Carlos Reichenbach plays a withdrawn and foul tempered father who for 30 years has been waiting for the return of his son, who disappeared during the 70s dictatorship. When his other son, Andre (played by film academic Andre Gatti), moves in after his divorce, he tries to reconnect with his father and awaken him to life and his past via recovered Super-8 films and old LPs. Wahrmann crafts an intricate and evocative universe of images and especially of sound in an attempt to shake up the father's monotonous present and make the disappeared brother—as well as the past—less of a ghost. Andre wants the past to become part of his father's present, perhaps for him to even connect with the pain in order to wake up. Wahrmann attempts something similar with the spectator, taking us on a voyage as radical in form as the movements it evokes.
July 13 at 5:15pm
July 14 at 1pm
*Director in attendance for both screenings.
* Belated/Deshora
Bárbara Sarasola-Day, Argentina/Colombia/Norway, 2013; 102m
North American Premiere!
Helena and Ernesto live by the mountainous jungle, in their tobacco plantation in Salta, Northwestern Argentina. Their marriage is already in crisis, but shakes up even further when a quiet and mysterious cousin of Helena’s arrives from Colombia to complete his rehab in this isolated wilderness. The cousin unleashes unknown forces on the couple, putting them in touch with emotions and desires until then suppressed. Through the use of handheld camera, an austere mise-en-scene and contained but subtly explosive performances, Sarasola-Day succeeds in creating an almost unbearably tense atmosphere as each character develops a relationship with the other. With this film, she crafts both a potrait of a decadent landowning aristocracy and its rigid patriarchal social structure, and an exploration of desire’s limits and expression. Paradoxically, the tension brings life to Helena and Ernesto’s marriage. But by then they have become different people, and the restrained emotions that have accumulated throughout the movie eventually explode in surprising ways.
July 19 at 8:45pm
July 21 at 6pm
* Director in attendance for both screenings.
* Bring Me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman /Traiganme la cabeza de la mujer metralleta
Ernesto Díaz Espinoza, Chile, 2013; 75m
New York Premiere!
An unusual genre in Latin American cinema: the action movie. This exuberant and hilarious tribute to Peckinpah’s similarly titled 1974 film is also a Western, but with a video game aesthetic and structure. A naïve and nerdy DJ who lives with his mother in Santiago and spends his days on his Playstation gets into trouble with a dangerous Argentine gangster. In order to save his own life, the DJ must undertake the mission to capture the untamable female mercenary Machine Gun Woman, dead or alive. The film is structured according to the missions he must accomplish on his way to finding the woman, as he is chased around by paid assassins and witnesses bloody acts.
July 20 at 9:30pm
July 21 at 8:30pm
*Director in attendance for both screenings.
* The Eternal Night of Twelve Moons / La eterna noche de las doce lunas
Priscilla Padilla, Colombia, 2013; 87m
U.S. Premiere!
“I’m happy to be locked up and to carry on our traditions,” says Pili, a young Wayuu who is making the transition to womanhood. In Pili’s community, tradition dictates that, after their first menstruation and in order to be properly appreciated, young women must be isolated from all men for 12 moon cycles. During this time, accompanied only by the women in the family, the girls learn to weave and acquire other skills that will be useful to them in future. A solid narrative discourse that includes references to Wayuu cosmogony describes the three phases in the ritual Pili must complete: the history behind her isolation, the long period of seclusion she must sit out, and the celebration at the end of it, when Pili is officially declared a young woman or majayut. Thanks to some intelligent directing and inspired photography, what could easily have been a simple ethnographic documentary is transformed into a beautiful film about tradition, liberation and the ever-arduous task of being a woman.
July 12 at 3:00pm
July 17 at 6:15pm
July 19 at 4:30pm
* From Tuesday to Tuesday / De martes a martes
Gustavo Fernandez Trivino, Argentina, 2012; 97m
New York Premiere!
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Juan Benitez is a tough bodybuilder with a slightly menacing presence, but gentle and quiet in his interactions with people. He is hardworking, a textile factory operator during the day and a club bouncer at night, and dreams of eventually opening his own gym. But with a family to support, this prospect seems out of reach. Midway into the story, his steady routine is overturned after he witnesses a crime, and the film takes on a different tone, moving from subdued drama to a taut and suspenseful thriller as Benitez ponders what action to take. A cameraman and assistant director on more than 70 films since he graduated from film school 16 years ago, this is Trivino’s directorial debut.
July 15 at 8:15pm
July 17 at 8:15pm
* The Future / Il future
Alicia Scherson, Chile/Germany/Italy/Spain, 2013; 98m
New York Premiere!
This faithful rendition of Una novelita lumpen is the first of Roberto Bolaño’s literary works to be adapted for cinema. Scherson’s third feature (Play and Turistas, her first two, showcased in earlier editions of Latinbeat) tells the story of Bianca and her brother Tomas, two suddenly orphaned Chilean teenagers who, in the dark midst of their mourning slowly descend into an underworld of B-movies, cheap novels and derelict characters in the margins of their adopted city, Rome. Manuela Martelli plays the vulnerable and beautiful Bianca, who is drawn into a heist to rob a hidden treasure from an aging and ailing former Miss Universe and old-schoolHercules star (Rutger Hauer). This sexual and emotional adventure becomes a rite of passage that gives her a sense of empowerment strong enough to move on into a future, however uncertain, from which she soberly narrates this story.
July 12 at 9:15pm
July 16 at 8:15pm
* Impenetrable / El impenetrable
Daniele Incalcaterra & Fausta Quattrini, Argentina/France, 2012; 95m. North American Premiere!
Incalcaterra and Quattrini take us deep into the Paraguayan Chaco with this narratively rigorous, fascinating adventure that is at once travel diary, Western, road trip, scientific exploration, and a portrayal of the savagery of capitalist exploitation. During his dictatorship, Stroessner sold to friends huge amounts of land for very little money, land that originally belonged to the Guarani Indians. This is how the filmmaker and his brother, Italians living in Argentina, came to inherit 5,000 hectares in the heart of Paraguayan Chaco. This land is also the reason they became estranged from their father until his death in 1994. Twenty years later, the brothers embark on a quixotic adventure to restore this piece of wilderness teeming with wildlife and precious botanical resources to its original owners. But the “impenetrable” (as much a geographic as a judiciary term) land seems to be hiding dark forces—in the form of locked gates, bulldozers, armed neighbors—that won’t allow them to advance. Thus starts an intricate suspense story that unwinds with narrative and rhythmical precision to its unexpectedly happy ending.
July 20 at 7:00pm
July 21 at 3:45pm
* Magical Words (Breaking a Spell) / Palabras mágicas (Para romper un encantamiento)
Mercedes Moncada, Guatemala/Mexico, 2012; 83m
New York Premiere!
Moncada lived in Nicaragua for 18 years and, as a child in 1979, witnessed the triumph of the Sandinista revolution. In this, her fourth film (her first two showcased at past editions of Latinbeat), she uses Lake Managua as a metaphor for what her beloved Nicaragua has gone through, and has become, since this pivotal and promising moment in the country’s history. As she traces the changes undergone by the Sandinista movement since the revolution, Moncada weaves herself into the story—her own dreams, love, and pain at every historic step. Her relationship to the revolution is intense and personal and so her feelings about it progress as it does, “from a childhood in which death is romantic and heroic to the deepest and most beautiful love, the pain of loss, betrayal and finally a void.” A poignant and engaging personal perspective on the Nicaraguan revolution.
July 19 at 6:30pm
July 21 at 1:30pm
*Director in attendance for both screenings.
* The Mayor / El alcalde
Emiliano Altuna, Carlos Federico Rossini & Diego Enrique Osorno, Mexico, 2012; 81m. New York Premiere!
Located in the state of Nuevo León, the municipality of San Pedro Garza García is considered the richest and safest in the whole country, despite the violent atmosphere that exists in the northern states of Mexico. Despite the fact that the murder of municipal mayors by the drug cartels is a common practice, the mayor of this municipality, Mauricio Fernández Garza, is not only very much alive but also sparking heated arguments. This eccentric millionaire and collector of art, who both repels and charms, has decided to take justice into his own hands. The unorthodox security strategies he has put into place in order to restrain drug violence are highly questioned. The film wisely captures the fascinating contradictions in Garza’s personality as it reflects the complex situation of Mexico’s drug wars—a mix of violence, modern Mexican politics, strong economic interests, and a bold discredit of the political class.
July 13 at 7:15pm
July 15 at 6:15pm
*Directors in attendance for both screenings.
* Never Die / Mai morire
Enrique Rivero, Mexico, 2012; 84m. New York Premiere!
Director Enrique Rivero moves away from the kind of minimalist aesthetic of Parque Vía (New Directors/New Films ‘09) in his new film starring Chayo, a woman who must return to her hometown of Xochimilco after she learns that the death of her mother is near. The contemplative camerawork paints a stunningly beautiful portrayal of the town, rich in ancient customs and rituals that are still quietly observed. Amidst lush, majestic natural surroundings, Chayo delicately prepares for the imminent loss, which leads to a profound and meditative reflection on the constantly renewing cycle of life and our changing place in the world.
July 13 at 1:00pm
July 16 at 6:15pm
* Señoritas
Lina Rodriguez, Colombia/Canada, 2013; 87m
US Premiere!
The camera follows Alejandra, a young middle class woman from Bogotá, in her daily routines—as she puts on makeup, gets ready to go out, parties with friends, goes out with boys, walks home—capturing both her moments alone and her interactions with the world. The camera stays close enough to Alejandra to make us feel immersed in her world, yet keeps just enough distance to preserve a sense of her mystery. In her exploration of a young woman’s universe, Rodriguez claims that she wanted “to know how women are negotiating expectations of themselves and each other, of their families and friends and the men they meet.” Though conceptually and formally simple—the film has few scenes and each is resolved with just a few shots—hers is a daring, new kind of (minimalist) filmmaking that breaks ground not only in Colombia but in the rest of Latin America as well.
July 12 at 5:00pm
July 14 at 4:45pm
July 19 at 2:30pm
*Director in attendance on July 14.
* So Much Water / Tanta agua
Ana Guevara & Leticia Jorge, Uruguay/Mexico/Holland/Germany, 2013; 100m. New York Premiere!
What can be worse than being 14 and going on vacation with your father? Taking your children on vacation and not being able to go out because of the rain. Alberto has not been able to spend much time with Lucia and Federico since his divorce. The three of them are on their way to the hot springs for a short vacation. But when they arrive at their rented cabin they learn that the pools have closed until further notice because of the electric storms. Alberto tries to remain enthusiastic and is determined to not let anything ruin their plans, but everybody's moods inevitably become altered. The rain continues to fall and it seems the house they rented is about to explode.
July 18 at 8:30pm
July 20 at 2:30pm
*Director in attendance for both screenings.
* The Tears / Las lagrimas
Pablo Delgado Sanchez, Mexico, 2012; 66m. North American Premiere!
A camping trip in the woods becomes a painful but ultimately healing rite of passage for two brothers who are struggling to cope with their disturbing family environment. With an absent father and a severely depressed, alcoholic mother who stays locked inside her room all day, spending the summer vacation at home seems like a punishment as it heightens the brothers’ sense of solitude and vulnerability. Though intended as a break from all of this, their escape into nature actually triggers memories and brings forth the fears and hardships that haunt their daily life. Delgado Sanchez's first feature has a taut, suspenseful narrative and sparse mise-en-scene that eloquently conveys the brothers' ordeal and the cathartic spirit of their voyage.
July 18 at 6:30pm
July 20 at 5:00pm
*Director in attendance for both screenings.
** Matías Piñeiro Retrospective
Matéas Piñeiro, Argentina, 2007; 91m. New York Premiere!
Pineiro’s sparkling debut film breathlessly follows a clever, capricious young woman as she carefully interweaves friends and lovers into an intricate web of secretive yet often unexpectedly compassionate games. Together with her best friend and fellow tour guide at a rival Buenos Aires historical museum, Piñeiro’s headstrong heroine attempts to tame the unpredictable course of her heart, eccentrically drawing inspiration from Sarmiento’s magnum opus, Facundo. With its grainy 16mm black-and-white cinematography, its political sub- and super-texts and its compelling portrait of impetuous youth, The Stolen Man recalls the alternately sober and sprightly nouvelle vague of Jean Eustache and Jacques Rivette. (Harvard Film Archive)
July 13 at 3:00pm
July 14 at 8:45pm
*Director in attendance for both screenings.
* They All Lie / Todos mienten
Matías Piñeiro, Argentina, 2009; 75m
A more abstract counterpart to The Stolen Man, Piñeiro’s second feature unleashes eight strong-willed characters into a clandestine plot involving art forgery, an unfinished novel, and Sarmiento’s U.S. journals, resulting in a giddy kaleidoscope of differing meaning that playfully channels the high postmodernism of William Gaddis. Piñeiro explores a cool stylistic restraint in They All Lie, deploying previse mise-en-scene to transform the rambling country house that is the film’s sole location into a series of inter-nested boxes and closets in which strange skeletons inevitably wait. With their zealous embrace of Sarmiento’s introspective writings, Piñeiro’s youthful and self-absorbed characters once again become the delightfully improbable vehicles for thoughtful reflections on the history of modern Argentina. (Harvard Film Archive)
July 13 at 9:10pm
July 14 at 2:45pm
*Director in attendance for both screenings.
NY ESSENTIALS : CINEMA SUMMER 2013
* LatinBeat 2013 > Julio 12 - 21 > Film Society of Lincoln Center, NYC > Latin.
It is impossible to give a complete overview of current trends in Latin American filmmaking in just 10 days; the amount of rich work being created right now is too vast. Instead, think of this edition of Latinbeat as a sampling, mostly by emerging filmmakers—only a handful of them have showcased works here in the past. Most striking about this recent crop of films is the number of co-productions between multiple Latin American countries, which speaks of an expanding exchange of ideas and sense of identity within the region. Yet this widening collaboration is just one part of a continued effort to make possible startling, defiant, innovative and beautiful storytelling, despite often limited resources. This year’s lineup also includes the previously announced retrospective of filmmaker, Matias Piñeiro, who will screen his films THE STOLEN MAN and THEY ALL LIE during the festival while simultaneously theatrically opening VIOLA and ROSALINDA at the Film Society of Lincoln Center on July 12th.
* Los Amantes Pasajeros (I'm so excited). Director Pedro Almodóvar > Nationwide > En varios teatros.
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Foto cortesía de SonyClassics
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A technical failure has endangered the lives of the people on board Peninsula Flight 2549. The pilots are striving, along with their colleagues in the Control Center, to find a solution. The flight attendants and the chief steward are atypical, baroque characters who, in the face of danger, try to forget their own personal problems and devote themselves body and soul to the task of making the flight as enjoyable as possible for the passengers, while they wait for a solution. Life in the clouds is as complicated as it is at ground level, and for the same reasons, which could be summarized in two: sex and death.
* Pacific Rim. Director Guillermo del Toro > Estrena Julio 12 > Nationwide > En varios teatros.
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Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures – © 2013 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and Legendary Pictures Funding, LLC
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Matías Piñeiro is one of contemporary Argentine cinema’s most sensuous and sophisticated new voices. In his latest film, Viola, he ingeniously fashions out of Shakepeare’sTwelfth Night a seductive roundelay among young actors and lovers in present-day Buenos Aires. Mixing melodrama with sentimental comedy, philosophical conundrum with matters of the heart, Viola bears all the signature traits of a Piñeiro film: serpentine camera movements and slippages of language, an elliptical narrative and a playful confusion of reality and artifice.
* Crystal Fairy & The Magical Cactus > Director Sebastián Silva > Estreno Julio 12 > IFC Center, NYC > Fairy.
On a trip through Chile a boorish American expat named Jamie (Michael Cera) and three Chilean brothers plan to set off in search of the prized San Pedro cactus and its promise of beachy hallucinations. But in the previous night’s drunken stupor Jamie invites a free- spirited fellow American (Gaby Hoffmann) along on their mescaline-driven road trip, and her devil-may-care worldview gives them more of an adventure than any of them had bargained for.
This new omnibus film, a remarkably successful example of a famously cursed form, brings together short films by four renowned and legendary filmmakers – Aki Kaurismäki, Pedro Costa, Víctor Erice, and Manoel de Oliveira. Though unified by a common theme – the producers asked each filmmaker to take their inspiration from the Portuguese city of Guimarães, the European Cultural Capital for 2012, and in particular to reflect on “the stories the city has to tell” – these four short films are radically different from each other. Sandwiched between two relatively light films (Kaurismäki’s typically dry and delicate TAVERN MAN and de Oliveira’s uncharacteristic foray into the explicitly comic, THE CONQUERED CONQUEROR), are Costa’s dark, claustrophobic, and deeply disquieting SWEET EXORCIST (starring his perpetual muse, Ventura, and marked by his usual ravishing command of digital video), and Erice’s fascinating, beautifully structured documentary study of a shuttered textile factory, BROKEN WINDOWS. As a whole, CENTRO HISTÓRICO encompasses four unique and varied perspectives on an ancient European city, as well as demonstrating the thrillingly varied range of sensibilities of these visionary filmmakers.
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Old Cats. 2010. Chile. Directed by Sebastián Silva, Pedro Peirano
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The Student. 2011. Argentina. Written and directed by Santiago Mitre
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A highly unusual historical film that takes a meditative, nearly non-narrative approach to portraying the experiences of those who continued to resist the Mexican government’s anti-Christian (especially anti-Roman Catholic) persecution, even following the official end of the Cristero War in 1929. Devoted to the cause, despite their increasing desperation and fatigue, and their yearning to rejoin their families, this band of rebels – whose genuine religious faith and spiritual innocence is apparent despite their paradoxical embrace of armed struggle – trudges exhaustedly through the hills and mountains of rural Mexico, experiencing moments of grace and beauty amid the violence and suffering.
And coming up soon: Alfonso Cuarón, Gravity; Chávez, Turbo, Sin City, The Counselor, La danza de la realidad, La contadora de películas, Europa Report y 33 días.
For more info on Latino movies near you, visit > CINE LATINO SOMEWHERE NEAR YOU! > http://goo.gl/fb/OZcJd.
CINE LATINO EN EL FESTIVAL NEW DIRECTORS / NEW FILMS
Celebrating its 42nd edition, New Directors / New Films is certainly one of the top film festivals around. A special festival as well, when we see together two of the most relevant cultural institutions in town: The Film Society of Lincoln Center and The Museum of Modern Art. Cosas buenas, pues!.
The Festival New Directors / New Films is dedicated to the discovery of new works by emerging filmmaking talent. For this edition the festival presents 25 features (19 narrative, 6 documentary) and 17 short films representing 24 countries – all having their New York City premieres.
Among the Latino highlights of the festival’s 42nd edition are
Matías Peñeiro's Viola; Jazmin Lopez's Leones; Marcelo Lordello's THEY’LL COME BACK; Eryk Rocha's JARDS, plus films from Italy and France and shorts from Mexico, Colombia, Spain and Brazil.
Other highlights include Alexandre Moors’s BLUE CAPRICE for Opening Night; the found-footage documentary, Penny Lane's OUR NIXON as the Closing Night selection; Shane Carruth’s UPSTREAM COLOR and Sarah Polley’s STORIES WE TELL.
Another highlight will be Emil Christov’s black comedy THE COLOR OF THE CHAMELEON and Rachid Djaidani’s RENGAINE.
Rajendra Roy, MoMA’s Celeste Bartos Chief Curator of Film says, “The filmmakers we welcome into the New Directors family this year are remarkably engaged with issues of our time, and the history that got us here. From the scourge of gun violence, to mental illness to the aftermath of the Arab Spring, this year's lineup feels particularly relevant to contemporary life.”
And relevant Latino filmmaking, of course!.
Here is a rundown of Latino films in the ND/NF:
* VIOLA (2013) 63min (photo).
Directors: Matías Piñeiro
Country: Argentina
Matías Piñeiro is one of contemporary Argentine cinema’s most sensuous and sophisticated new voices. In his latest film, VIOLA, he ingeniously fashions out of Shakepeare’s Twelfth Night a seductive roundelay among young actors and lovers in present-day Buenos Aires. Mixing melodrama with sentimental comedy, philosophical conundrum with matters of the heart, VIOLA bears all the signature traits of a Piñeiro film: serpentine camera movements and slippages of language, an elliptical narrative and a playful confusion of reality and artifice. A Cinema Guild release.
* LEONES (2012) 80min
Director: Jazmin Lopez
Countries: Argentina/France/Netherlands
Is this a story about five friends wandering through a forest, or is it about a forest that receives five visitors? In this metaphysical trance film, the verdant environment is as much a character as the youngsters, enfolding them as they move through it, their playful banter, word games, and ruminations filling the air. In a succession of long takes, a gliding camera follows this enigmatic hike to nowhere. Nothing is what it seems, but a malfunctioning tape recording may contain an explanation.
* THEY’LL COME BACK (2012) 105min
Director: Marcelo Lordello
Country: Brazil
In this gentle, understated drama, an upper-middle-class 12-year-old learns how Brazil’s other half lives when she and her sullen older brother are left behind by their parents in a rural backwater. Soon, Cris (ably played by Maria Luiza Tavares, who carries the film from beginning to end) is taken in by a family living in a squatter farming community, where she waits for mom and pop to return. And waits and waits. Another fine debut from the Recife film scene, source of last year’s ND/NF hit NEIGHBORING SOUNDS.
* JARDS (2012) 93min
Director: Eryk Rocha
Country: Brazil
The celebrated composer and musician Jards Macalé is in the recording studio where director Eryk Rocha captures him in a wide variety of poses and states of creating, imaginatively varying style and shooting formats. Fashioning an intimately attuned portrait of an artist, Rocha uses his camera as an instrument to riff with Jards in a poetic exchange between images and music. The repetitive, time-stopping process of rehearsal and the flow of energy between the two art forms create an elegiac vision of the creativity of some of Brazil’s most beloved singers and musicians.
* L’INTERVALLO (2012) 86min
Director: Leonardo Di Costanzo
Country: Italy
Winner of the Critics’ Prize at the 2012 Venice Film Festival, this portrait of two adolescents thrown together under the eye of the Neapolitan Camorra has an air of menace and sexual tension. A shy ice-cream vendor (Alessio Gallo) guards a feisty girl (Francesca Riso) who has allegedly wronged a local gangster. Holed up in an abandoned building, they warily share dreams of escaping their fate. Director Di Costanzo brings documentary realism and a poetic eye to this quietly intense drama; his nonprofessional actors give beautifully shaded performances in Neapolitan dialect.
* RENGAINE (2012) 75min
Director: Rachid Djaïdani
Country: France
The French title of this no-budget urban drama translates as “refrain,” and repetition is what it embodies—in this case the well-worn story of Romeo and Juliet. Sabrina (Sabrina Hamida) accepts the marriage proposal of struggling actor Dorcy (Stéphane Soo Mongo), but Dorcy is a black Christian and Sabrina a Muslim Arab. Her eldest brother, Slimane (Slimane Dazi), enlists the 39 “brothers” in their extended clan to prevent the taboo union. Shot in the streets, this film is part love letter to the irresistible energy of Paris, part call for interracial tolerance.
LATINO SHORTS:
* EVERYTHING NEAR BECOMES FAR (2012) 11min
Director: Mauricio Arango
Countries: USA/Colombia
The peaceful daily rhythm of a farmer is violently interrupted in the heart of the breathtakingly beautiful Andean mountains.
* TABOULÉ (2012) 4min
Director: Richard Garcia
Country: Spain
How can you measure trust? A story about secret codes.
* CHIRALIA (2013) 26min
Director: Santiago Gil
Country: Germany
A boy’s disappearance at a wooded lake leads to a questioning of memory and perception.
* TO PUT TOGETHER A HELICOPTER (Para armar un helicóptero) (2012) 37min
Director: Izabel Acevedo
Country: Mexico
When summer rains bring power outages to his neighborhood, 17-year-old Oliverio comes up with an ingenious solution.
* THE VILLAGE (A Cidade) (2012) 25min
Director: Liliana Sulzbach
Country: Brazil
A small village’s inhabitants are all elderly, and no one new is moving in.
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS:
* UPSTREAM COLOR (2012) 96min
Director: Shane Carruth
Country: USA
Ever since his 2004 debut, filmmaker Shane Carruth has prompted curiosity over what he’d come up with next. UPSTREAM COLOR meets expectations but is also starkly different and markedly advanced. It represents something new in American cinema, exploring life’s surprising jumps and science’s strange effects. A love story embedded in a kidnap plot, UPSTREAM COLOR leaps with great audacity through its sequences, a cinematic simulacrum of the way we reflect on our lives, astonished at, as in the title of Grace Paley’s fiction collection, our Enormous Changes at the Last Minute. UPSTREAM COLOR opens in NY on April 5.
* TOWER (2012) 78min
Director: Kazik Radwanski
Country: Canada
For his feature debut, Kazik Radwanski has opted to train his camera with great intensity and control on a character who utterly lacks a center or direction, even an identity. In his mid-thirties yet still living at home with his parents, Derek (Derek Bogart) struggles to make a small animation about a green creature building rock towers. He can’t maintain any real friendships, let alone romantic involvements, until he encounters Nicole (Nicole Fairbaim), who offers a glint of promise. Radwanski‘s single-minded vision suggests filmmaking of uncommon discipline combined with unmistakable empathy.
* BLUE CAPRICE (2012) 92min
Director: Alexandre Moors
Country: USA
Alexandre Moors’s remarkable debut feature explores the impulse to commit murder, following two snipers, the elder John and 17-year old Lee, who orchestrate an insidious act of gun violence that is seemingly torn from the front pages. Abandoned by his mother, Lee is taken in by John, who becomes a mentor preaching hate and teaching marksmanship. Blind loyalty grows, and death becomes mundane. Masterfully performed by Isaiah Washington and Tequan Richmond, the characters are disturbingly human. Moors and screenwriter R.F.I. Porto navigate the violence discreetly, focusing on the inner origins of evil. An essential film for our times.
* OUR NIXON (2013) 85min
Director: Penny Lane
Country: USA
As President Richard Nixon tape-recorded his conversations for posterity, so his devoted aides—H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and Dwight Chapin—shot hundreds of rolls of Super-8 film documenting the presidency. Filmmakers Penny Lane (DIR/Co-SCR/Co-PROD) and Brian L. Frye (Co-SCR/Co-PROD) have edited this footage—virtually unseen since the FBI seized it during the Watergate investigation—and interwoven it with period news footage and pop culture, excerpts from the Nixon tapes, and contemporary interviews. OUR NIXON offers an unprecedented, insider’s view of an American presidency, chronicling watershed events including the Apollo moon landing and the path-breaking trip to China, as well as more intimate glimpses of Nixon in times of glory and disgrace.
* STORIES WE TELL (2012) 108min
Director: Sarah Polley
Country: Canada
What is real? What is true? What do we remember, and how do we remember it? Actor/director Sarah Polley turns from fiction to nonfiction, in the process cracking open family secrets. Using home movies, still photographs, and interviews, Polley delves into the life of her mother, a creative yet secretive woman. But while she is talking to her own relatives, Polley’s interest lies in the bigger picture of what families hold onto as truth. STORIES WE TELL is a delicately crafted personal essay about memory, loss, and understanding. A Roadside Attractions release.
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