12th Cine Las Americas International Film Festival
12th Cine Las Americas International Film Festival Recap
The 12th Cine Las Americas International Film Festival (CLAIFF) was held from April 22-30, 2009 in Austin, Texas. With 3,200 audience members, CLAIFF screened a total of 116 films representing 23 countries including, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Germany, South Korea, Japan, India, France, Guatemala, Italy, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Spain, United Kingdom, Uruguay, United States and Venezuela. This year’s festival also hosted 5 final jury members and 35 international, national and local filmmakers, including directors, producers, actors, screenwriters and music composers.
- Click here to see a photo gallery of the festival
- Download a PDF version of the Film Festival Final Report
The festival received more than 350 films for review, and the Cine Las Americas film selection committee reviewed over 500 films in total. The program sections for the 2009 festival included New Releases, Narrative Feature Competition, Documentary Feature Competition, Narrative Shorts in Competition, Documentary Shorts in Competition, Animation, Hecho en Tejas, Panorama and Emergencia Youth Film Festival. The 2009 festival also presented a film retrospective from the year’s invited country of honor, Chile. The selected program covered a wide range of genres, themes, and styles from the years 1994-2004, in the retrospective entitled “Chilean Cinema of the Post-Dictatorship Era.”
Read more: 12th Cine Las Americas International Film Festival Recap
2009 Film Festival Schedule
Cine Las Americas is pleased to announce the official schedule and full program for the
12th Cine Las Americas International Film Festival
Emergencia Youth Film Festival
One of the best sections of the Cine Las Americas Film Festival program is Emergencia, the film competition devoted to filmmakers 19 years of age or younger. The films and videos presented in this section are always unpredictable, urgent, and often successful in addressing important issues while maintaining dynamism and freshness in their approach.
Thursday April 23, 4 to 6 PM
Mexican American Cultural Center, MACC (Map)
Free
Closing Night
ARRÁNCAME LA VIDA
TEAR THIS HEART OUT
Directed by Roberto Sneider
Mexico/Spain, 2008
Based on the novel by Ángeles Mastretta
Starring: Ana Claudia Talancón, Daniel Giménez Cacho, and José María de Tavira
Thursday, April 30, 7PM
Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar
1120 S Lamar, Austin, TX 78704 (Map)
(512) 476-1320
Tickets are $10. On-line ticket sales are closed. A limited number of tickets will be available at the box office of the Alamo South. These tickets will be sold on a first come-first served basis.
Amidst the political turmoil and machismo of post-revolutionary Mexico, a young woman searches for freedom and identity in an era that would define a nation.
2009 Festival Awards
The 12th Cine Las Americas International Film Festival announces the winners of the five categories of its jury competition: Best First or Second Narrative Feature, Best Narrative Short, Best Documentary Feature, Best Documentary Short, and Best Youth Film.
The Festival also recognizes the winners of Audience Awards.
2009 Filmmakers in Attendance
Cine Las Americas is honored to welcome filmmakers in attendance at screenings throughout the festival. These directors, producers, cinematographers and other creative talent travel from near and far to share the experience of viewing their work with audiences in Austin.
2009 Film Festival Schedule
Cine Las Americas is pleased to announce the official schedule and full program for the 12th Cine Las Americas International Film Festival.
2009 Films by Country
The 12th Cine Las Americas International Film Festival features over 100 films. Here you can find a complete list of films organized by country of origin. Click on each film title to see more about each film.
2009 Film Festival Program Sections
The 12th Cine Las Americas International Film Festival presents films in thirteen different program sections. By browsing this area of the site, you can find a description of each section and the films that are screened in each one of them.
Using home movies and other media, Diário de Sintra documents director Paula Gaitán’s return to the Portuguese city of Sintra, to search for memories of her late husband, Brazilian cinema novo pioneer Glauber Rocha. Gaitán and Rocha lived exiled in Portugal in 1981 with their two children, Eryk and Ava, before his untimely death. The filmmaker’s layered experimental work creates an impression of the past through its rich accumulation of images, meditations, and reminiscences.
Filmed in the idyllic Mayan Riviera, All Inclusive follows the story of a Chilean-Mexican family during their summer vacation. Facing the imminent arrival of a storm, each of the characters goes through unexpected situations that cause deep changes in their lives, and they have to deal with their innermost fears, conflicts and secrets. The trip will be unforgettable, but it will remind every member of the family of the ups and the downs that make up life. With a stellar cast featuring Jesús Ochoa, Valentina Vargas, Ana Serradilla, Martha Higareda, Jesús Zavala, Leonor Varela, Jaime Camil, Maya Zapata, Mónica Cruz and Edgar Vívar, All Inclusive is an appealing movie that talks about the search of happiness, the things we don’t say, tolerance and family love.
Arráncame la vida begins its journey during a transformative period in Mexican history. The Revolution of 1910 is over and the country’s rule is open to whatever politician had the audacity to grab it. Dominating men fight ruthlessly for control, manipulating and exploiting others to gain power. Growing up in 1930s Mexico, Catalina Guzmán knows little of the world beyond her father’s house, unaware of the political storm that looming over the whole country.
It’s 1988, and Melo, an Uruguayan town on the Brazilian border, awaits the visit of Pope John Paul II. Fifty thousand people are expected to attend, and the most humble locals believe that selling food and drink to the multitude will just about make them rich. Petty smuggler Beto thinks he has the best idea of all when he decides to build a bathroom in front of his house and charge for its use. His efforts bring about unexpected consequences, and the final results will surprise everyone.
Cultured, prosperous, blessed with three children and many friends, Leonardo and Martha are a truly enviable example of the species “married couple.” Leonardo is an author of considerable repute; Martha, a hyperactive housewife with academic interests. Leonardo sits back and observes; Martha forges ahead and acts. An enviable couple?
La buena vida tells the story of four characters that, while strangers to each other, live in the same bustling city. All of them chase after their dreams: Teresa tries to rescue lives as a psychologist; Edmundo is a hairdresser who dreams of owning a car; Mario wishes to join the Philharmonic; and Patricia works on surviving daily life. As they chase after their dreams, but struggle with misfortune, all of the characters will be surprised by where life takes them.
A bourgeois woman driving alone on a dirt road becomes distracted and accidentally runs over something. In the days following this jarring incident, she feels dazed and emotionally disconnected from the people and events in her life as she becomes obsessed with the possibility that she may have killed someone. The police confirm that there were no accidents reported in the area and everything returns to normal until a gruesome discovery is made. Lucrecia Martel’s third feature examines the intricacies of class status and the role of women in a male-dominated society.
It is a significant day for 80-year-old Antonio—after an absence of many years, his estranged son is coming to visit. All must be perfect. There will be a toast with special champagne, an embrace, warm words that may finally bridge the gap between them…but before all that, Antonio must wait. Bedridden, he looks out his window at the Patagonian landscape and sees light and life, the past and the present, while sensing the future. He decides to secretly leave the house, unseen by his faithful caretakers, to take what might be a last walk in his fields, breathing the air, treading the earth, inhaling the scent of the land that had been his life. What might otherwise seem like insignificant memories or moments in one’s life take a special, beautiful meaning and weight in this poetic, humanistic film.
Teenager Juan crashes his family’s car into a telegraph pole on the outskirts of town and then scours the streets searching for someone to help him fix it. His quest leads him to Don Heber, an old, paranoid mechanic whose only companion is his dog Sica; to Lucía, a young mother who is convinced that her real place in life is as a lead singer in a punk band; and to “The One Who Knows,” a teenage mechanic obsessed with martial arts and Kung Fu philosophy. The absurd and bewildering worlds of these characters engage Juan in a one-day journey during which he will come to accept what he was escaping from in the first place—an event both as natural and inexplicable as a loved one’s death.
After Julia is sent to jail for the murder of her lover, she gives birth to a son. Raising a child in prison is difficult, but the only thing that matters to Julia is this new being that accompanies her now. There is no life for her beyond that of her child. Her fellow inmate, Marta, becomes her ally; her mother Sofía, her opponent. While Marta attempts to teach her how to be a mother to her child in the least appropriate place; Sofía wishes to take over rearing the child, so that he can grow up free, outside the prison. The duel between mother and daughter reveals the dilemma facing Julia: is it better for her child to grow up next to his mother in prison, or without her, but in freedom?
Lo bueno de llorar tells the story of a couple, Vera and Alejandro, in the midst of ending their relationship. They are faced with a long night of decisions, doubts, fears, lies, silences, reflections and arguments. In a style reminiscent of Richard Linklater’s Before Sunset (2004), Bize’s film ultimately explores the dissolution of the couple. Intent on exploring the hidden feelings involved in a relationship through its minimalist style, the film reveals the dishonesty that may exist in a relationship, but also great truths about human beings.
On October 13, 1972, a young rugby team from Montevideo, Uruguay, boarded a plane for a match in Chile—and then vanished into thin air. Two days before Christmas, 16 of the 45 passengers miraculously resurfaced. Thirty-five years later, the survivors returned to the crash site—known as the Valley of Tears—to recount their harrowing story of defiant endurance and indestructible friendship. Previously documented in the 1973 worldwide bestseller Alive (and the 1993 Ethan Hawke movie of the same name), this shocking true story finally gets the cinematic treatment it deserves. Visually breathtaking and crafted with riveting detail by documentary filmmaker Gonzalo Arijón with a masterful combination of on-location interviews, archival footage, and reenactments, Stranded is by turns hauntingly powerful and spiritually moving.
Read more: Náufragos: Vengo de un avión que cayó en las montañas
Beto is the custodian of a house in Mexico City, left empty for several years, in which he used to work as a domestic helper. The solitude of the last ten years coupled with the monotony and routine of his job have led him to develop a pathological fear of the world outside, to the point of limiting his contacts to only two people: the owner of the house, for whom he has a feeling of deep gratitude and respect that is translated into obedience; and Lupe, a friend, a confidante, and a lover. News that the house is to go on sale causes a dilemma for Beto, who doesn't know whether he should dare to set forth and live or seek a way of remaining in his confinement.
"El Orejón" is a violent and agoraphobic crime boss who lives surrounded by telescopes in a luxury high-rise apartment in the center of the city. When his godson William Medina is killed, he beseeches Iris, a voodoo priestess, to avenge the murder by casting a deadly spell on the shooter. While Iris conducts her black magic, miles away from her a small-town heavy named Victor Peñaranda is carrying out a job to collect money from a slippery pair of twins. He makes a disastrous decision to break the sacred law of the crime world—he keeps the cash for himself. His choice unwittingly sets off a domino effect that wreaks havoc through two cities and the realm of the netherworld. Marlon Moreno, who plays Victor Peñaranda, won Best Actor at the 2009 Guadalajara International Film Festival for this portrayal.
A ten-year-old girl awakes alone in the middle of a ravaged and abandoned territory. She begins to wander around the contaminated land in search of food and people, but she discovers that she is caught in the middle of a war where military officials, patrolling the land covered in gas masks, execute people in horrible ways. The girl realizes that the only people who survive the mass executions show severe infections on their bodies so she finds her only company in other small children who share with her the recurrent dream of going to the ocean. In search of their common objective the group of children embarks on a journey to the ocean, crossing a city in ruins followed by the dangerous armed military.
In the midst of the tough social context of Pinochet’s dictatorship, Raúl Peralta, a man in his fifties, is obsessed with the idea of impersonating “Tony Manero,” John Travolta’s character in Saturday Night Fever. He leads a small group of dancers regularly performing at a bar located in the outskirts of the city every Saturday. Beneath Raúl’s exterior of seeming indifference to anything except meticulous recreation of Tony Manero’s dance moves and the chance to compete in a nationally televised Tony Manero impersonating contest, lies a darker side of his personality driven to commit a bizarre series of violent crimes. Meanwhile, his dancing partners, who are involved in underground activities against the regime, are persecuted by the government’s secret police. Tony Manero is a story about the loss of identity and obsession in recent Chilean history.
Before dying, Nora devises a plan to make José, her ex-husband, take care of her funeral during the height of Passover celebration. But despite her meticulousness she misses something—the only flaw in the plan, a mysterious photograph left under the bed, which leads to unexpected outcomes that remind us that sometimes the greatest love stories are hidden in the smallest places. A heartwarming story of love, doubt, faith, and the importance of family.
El cielo, la tierra y la lluvia deals with the lives of four lonely people living through monotony and silence in the south of Chile. They meet to eat, walk on the beach, take the ferry or simply to accompany each other without needing to say anything. In a way, they try to save themselves in a silent, furtive, and extreme manner. They search for love, sex, inexistent family affection, and their own space and time, not only to distance themselves from the loneliness that intimately brings them together, but, ultimately, to find themselves.
Twenty-eight year-old Enrique Heredia, also known as “Cuajo”, is afflicted by cerebral palsy and has difficulty walking. He and Adolfo, a downbeat 30-year-old who lives with his alcoholic father, decide to open a music studio, where they can earn a living while working with music, their passion. To accomplish this goal, they surround themselves with men and women of different origins and cultures but with whom they all share the common denominator of belonging to a long-suffering and deprived urban community. Winner of the 2009 Goya Award for Best First Feature.
FilmeFobia details a fictitious movie director’s attempt (played by one of Brazil’s main film scholars, Jean-Claude Bernardet) to make a documentary about fear in contemporary society. The main belief of this character is that the only image that is authentic, real, and truthful is actually that of a human being challenged by his or her own phobia. The crew of this film-within-a-film documentary explores the limits of the psyche by exposing phobics to their greatest irrational fears. A meditation on ethics in documentary, the filming of the film-within-a-film goes awry when the 71 year-old director begins to become personally and seriously afflicted by the disturbing nature of the project. All of the phobics of FilmeFobia are actors with one surprise inclusion: Kiko Goifman, director turned actor in his own film, submits himself to his very real phobia of blood.
Three teenagers—Gerardo, Nano and Raymundo—spend their spare time stealing gasoline to go joyriding. They travel in one of their mother’s car without a fixed destination, looking to entertain themselves. Each stop is a crash with reality that puts their friendship to the test, showing that teenage friendships have a thin line that separates betrayal, deception, and a kamikaze-like solidarity. Gasolina is an intimate story that shows that youth, country, and future are defined by extremes.
Pedro and the Captain, a film based on a play by Argentine writer Mario Benedetti, is a film propelled by its form and its content. Both dimensions are developed rigorously to transmit an idea of veracity in four encounters between torturer and prisoner, and the effect of the film’s audiovisual style is to physically discomfort the viewer as he or she is encouraged to identify with the prisoner. The film gives pre-eminence to action, to the actors, to the dialogue, and to the brief, precise reflections upon sensations and emotions.
For the young narrator of Postcards from Leningrad, being born into a socialist uprising in 1960s Venezuela wasn’t easy. She and her cousin Teo have learned how to live a clandestine life, making an ongoing game out of survival, with everything from code names and creative disguises to making themselves invisible and devising fantastic escape plans. A visual collage with playful animation and nostalgic footage of revolutionary youth, the film injects both humor and pathos into a story where wild imaginations, foggy memories, madness, white lies, and grief all mix seamlessly in a child’s reality.
As they chase dreams that have lost all meaning, a widowed father and his musician son, a TV broadcaster and her younger boyfriend, and a married professor inspired by his student, must negotiate what to sublimate and what to consummate in their desires. The film explores how modern-day life leads people astray from their most genuine expressions in the name of convention. The pressures and stress of day-to-day life, loneliness, and the absence of communication conspire to transport the characters into seemingly empty lives.
The near future. The world is divided by closed borders but connected by a digital network that ties together people around the world. Memo Cruz lives in an isolated farming community in Mexico, the kind of place that seems frozen in time—except for the hi-tech, militarized dam that was built by a corporation, and now controls the town’s water supply. Memo dreams of leaving his small pueblo and finding work in the hi-tech factories in the big cities in the north. On his journey north, he meets Luz, an aspiring journalist who dreams of writing a story that might one day change the world. Unwittingly their fates are manipulated by a chain of events emanating from the highest levels of technological advances.
Crude tells the epic story of one of the largest and most controversial legal cases on the planet. An inside look at the infamous $27 billion “Amazon Chernobyl” case, Crude is a real-life, high stakes, legal drama set against the backdrop of the environmental movement, global politics, celebrity activism, human rights advocacy, the media, multinational corporate power, and rapidly disappearing indigenous cultures. Presenting a complex situation from multiple viewpoints, the film brings an important story of environmental peril and human suffering into focus.
Past and present collide as filmmaker Natalia Almada brings to life audio recordings she inherited from her grandmother—reminiscences about Natalia’s great-grandfather General Plutarco Elías Calles, a revolutionary general who became president of Mexico in 1924. In his time, Calles was called “El Bolshevique” and “El Jefe Máximo” (the foremost chief). Today, he is remembered as “el Quema-Curas” (the Burner of Priests) and as a dictator who ruled through puppet presidents until he was exiled in 1936. Through his daughter’s recordings, El General moves between the memories of a daughter grappling with her memory of her family life versus history’s portrait of her father, and the weight of his legacy in the country today.
The lodging house owned by Rosa Carbajal at the corner of Shakespeare and Victor Hugo streets in Mexico City, is a shelter that hides an intimate and passionate story. Twenty years ago Rosa met Jorge Riosse, a young tenant who became her closest friend and for eight years made indelible marks on everyone he knew. But after his sudden death, some dark characteristics emerged. The film is a profound sketch of two lonely characters whose lives become strongly and strangely entwined.
Does Venezuela represent the dream of a new socialist society or is it just another distortion of populism and dictatorship? A trip with President Chávez over the largest oil reserve in the world, situated beneath the Orinoco River, becomes the occasion in which to enter into the lives of Venezuelans, nine years after the beginning of the Bolivarian Revolution. The government missions to fight illiteracy and hunger, the creation of a public health care system, and the development of an economy based on cooperative work are some of the achievements which characterize the Chavez era. But on the other hand there are the country’s 60 violent deaths a week and its collapsing hospitals, the closure of the most popular television channel, the old European immigrants in flight, the opposition black list, and the ubiquitous government propaganda. Venezuela en route to socialism: is this still possible in our post-ideological times.
Luca is the story of Luca Prodan, a young Italian man educated in Great Britain caught in the frenzy of London’s punk rock scene in the late 1970s, who takes a leap of faith by traveling to Argentina during the military dictatorship just before the war in the Falkland Islands. Here he formed SUMO, a rock band that left its mark on three generations and that, still to this day, remains a legend and an inescapable reference for Latin American musicians.
When people think about Brazilian music, they think about samba and bossa nova. But in between these two is a forgotten decade when baião, a rhythm from the northeast moved south, took the country by storm, and then spread around the world. The Man Who Bottled Clouds tells the story of baião through the rise and fall of its main proponent, the lyricist and composer known as “The Doctor of Baião,” and features appearances by other renowned Brazilian musicians like Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, and Lenine.
Pachamama tells the story of the director's journey through the Brazilian rainforest on his way to Perú and Bolivia, where he encounters the reality of people historically cut-off from the political process of their own country and that, for the first time, are attempting to have a say in the outcome of their own fate. The title of the film, Pachamama, is a word that means “Mother Earth” to certain groups of Native Americans, and refers to the bucolic goddess of the rural workers. A meditative film that also reveals social movements and moments often obscured from outsiders.
Charles, Zuleide, Gilberto, Cleide, Rogério, Claudio, and Lobão are the seven dwarves, all sons of the mythical Pindoba, the smallest and funniest clown in the world. Together they form the Pindorama Circus and travel from town town in northern Brazil, bringing with them their simplicity and humanity, fun and bravery. In their world, everyone wants to be a dwarf and all this makes the Pindorama world something new, and completely different from everything that surrounds it.
In telling the story of Pedro Manrique Figueroa, the pioneer of collage in Colombia, Ospina proposes nothing less than the re-telling and re-imagining of a crucial period of Colombian history, from the civil war that began in 1948 to the guerrilla fighting and new drug culture of the 1970s. Un tigre de papel is a collage itself, where art and politics, truth and lies, documentary and fiction intermingle.
Unidad 25 is the only jail-church in Latin America. There, in an environment that functions according to its unique set of rules, two hundred and fifty prisoners and thirty guards share their passion for Evangelism. This documentary film follows a prisoner from his arrival to the jail, his initial fear and distrust of the people around him, through his eventual indoctrination and transformation into an Evangelical prisoner.
In 1973 in Chile, at the height of the internal tension during Salvador Allende’s three years in office, Carmen, a university employee, maintains her faith in the popular government despite the constant questioning by her colleague Juan and her partner Víctor, who, confronted with the imminent coup, opts for a more radical response than she does. Carmen maintains her hope with the support of Carvajal, an exemplary proletarian in charge of cleaning up the university.
Casimiro tells the story of an illegal immigrant living in central Texas. As Casimiro tries to write a comforting letter to his family back home, we experience the truth about his days in America. The story follows him through his difficult routine, and demonstrates how a lonely man copes with hardships.
When Catalina Lunago falls in love with a fish and gets swallowed by marsh waters, her family will try to rescue her from the world of the “Chimbumbe.” The film is an adaptation of a traditional oral tale from San Basilio de Palenque, a village in northern Colombia declared as “Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity” by UNESCO.
Sixteen-year-old Pablo lives with his mother, who for a few years has been struggling to make ends meet. Faced with tremendous peer pressure to fit in by his schoolmates, Pablo deeply wishes they could go back to living the way they used to.
In a town where fishing is a deeply rooted tradition, women are considered bad omens on a boat. Without entirely comprehending this creed and inspired by her grandfather’s principles, Tere decides to prove that she can become a fisherwoman. Along with her best friend, one day she is able to catch a great cunaro. But, what seemed to be a dream come true for Tere vanishes quickly in the face of reality, and becomes a life lesson that neither girl will ever forget.
Nina is a 10 year old girl whose life changes dramatically when her dying father and Scissor Dancer master asks her to fulfill his last wish. Inspired by an Andean myth and by the short story by Peruvian writer José María Arguedas, "The Agony of Rasu Ñiti."
Chang Rodríguez, a delivery boy from Havana’s colorful Chinatown, is tired of his routine and longs for anything that will change his life. But unbeknownst to him, Chang’s life is actually connected to others living in the same building—including a young woman obsessed with collecting books and instruction manuals, a former Cantonese opera singer, and a Wushu practitioner. Completely unaware of his own power, Chang becomes an instrument of destiny every 12 years, during the year of the pig.
Ana, a 50-year-old woman, falls into a depression when her husband leaves her. Once she finally decides to get over it, she begins to change from the outside in and, led by rekindled desire, starts a process in which she rediscovers her sexuality.
A man remembers a childhood promise, which awakens his curiosity to seek out an old girlfriend again.
During supper, two women who recently began dating sit down to discuss infidelity. Between wine, a snoring son, and passionate sex, the discussion will lead them to ask each other whether their relationship should and could continue.
Read more: No me pidas que no lo lamente (Don’t Ask Me Not To Be Sorry)
Andrei Ivanov, a Russian immigrant in Spain, set off sometime ago on a very particular journey....
Saliva portrays the world of adolescence through the life of 12 year-old Marina, obsessed with the anticipation of her first kiss. Scenes from Marina’s imagination alternate with the real life, bringing lyrical expression with touches of humor to this innocent rite of passage.
When Ramona’s son, Osvaldo, disappears, she loses her calm and begins a search that leads her to contact the coroner, and to maybe even accept the possibility that her son is dead. With special appearances by Ana Ofelia Murgía and Damián Alcázar.
In the 1980s, at the height of the Cold War, a bloody civil war between the Soviet-friendly Sandinistas and U.S.-backed Contras ravaged Nicaragua. Despite the danger, thousands of Americans disobeyed White House warnings and descended upon the Central American nation, determined to lend their skills and labor to the social-democratic Sandinista cause. Using an eclectic mixture of rare archival footage, arresting still photography, and contemporary interviews, American/Sandinista tells the story of a small group of controversial U.S. engineers who partnered with local communities and went further than anyone expected, risking their lives in the process.
Ever since Brian Marquez was murdered on a San Francisco street corner in 2005, his father, Luis, has been on a quest to find the killers that took his son. During the traditional Mexican holiday of Day of the Dead, Close to Home portrays a father that has yet to deal with the death of his son, and a daughter who longs to reconnect with the father she once had.
Conversations II offers an intimate look at the female universe; a journey in time through evocative images and the testimonies of women from the same family. Through the personal search of a daughter into the lives of her mother and grandmother, the film explores the evolution of the female role in a Latin American society and how the views of marriage and motherhood have changed with each generation, as well as the view that women have of themselves.
A woman facing a bleak future recounts her life in sketchy, seemingly random, episodes. One by one the scars and despair left by a life ridden with responsibilities and sacrifice, but little joy, inevitably emerge. Diario del fin is a visceral and moving account filled with brutally honest, yet liberating, confessions.
This animated short investigates the mystery and motivations behind cartoonist Angeli’s decision to kill off the underground diva, Rê Bordosa, his most famous character. Was it because she was too famous? Because of envy? Or did he do it just for kicks?
In the remote Spanish village of Riofrío, most of the women have left. Unable to bear the disastrous situation any longer, the village men organize a busload of single women to come from Madrid to relieve their solitude. Their ideal aim is to fall in love but having never learned how to relate to women, besides their mothers and prostitutes, the event turns into a bizarre adventure. Waiting for Women is a heart-warming documentary about love, solitude, gender, migration and hope.
BigBand is a journey into a contemporary urban world through a mixture of animation techniques and cinematographic narrative, combined with a soundtrack composed of descriptive music. Throughout this vision based on diverse experiences of Caracas, the city of origin for the stories and criticisms described in BigBand, the spectator becomes trapped in a constant transformation of people and places that advances indefinitely, revealing the similarities between the city and the natural cycle of life.
A man, used to living in a society where using people as objects is part of everyday life, makes his way to work...
Several characters, feeling isolated and incomplete, share their solitude inside a maze-like house. They desperately seek to find a complement in each other.
In a nursing home, where nothing is left but memories and loneliness, an elderly woman weaves her fate…. Winner of the 2009 Mexican Ariel for Best Animated Short Film.
A man and a woman sit in front of one another, eating pasta. They express their feelings through the food, getting to know each other and creating their own language with sounds, special effects, and music.
Voodoo Bayou tells the oddball tale of a Voodoo doll that springs to life after being stung by an electrified mosquito. Then, after discovering that he’s been used for evil purposes, he decides to escape—but it won’t be easy, since his master, a mysterious witch doctor, will not stop chasing him until he’s back in the villain’s wrinkled hands.
Despite the disturbance from the violinist downstairs, Ernesto attempts to call back his dead wife, Esperanza. The night, however, does not end as Ernesto would have hoped, when what should have been a romantic evening ends in heartbreak.
Virtuoso drummer and percussionist Jahir belongs to an Evangelist music group. One day, after defying the priest, he is expelled from church and he finds himself wandering the streets of Rio de Janeiro in an existential search for his music and his place in the world.
Emmett Deemus, a semi-delusional 70 year-old Outlaw Biker wannabe has just helped a friend escape an assisted living facility when, in mid-flight, his motorcycle breaks down and neither has enough money to fix it. Seeing several motorcycles parked outside a suburban garage, Emmett stops to ask for help. When he discovers that a gang of young outlaw bikers are holding a voluptuous young lady captive inside, the “Outlaw Emmett Deemus” decides to single-handedly save her in order to collect the reward money, which would allow him to fix his cycle.
Set in a small mining town in Northern New Mexico, Things We Do For Love is a short film about how far one family is willing to go to show their love for one another. When Mom's brother dies unexpectedly he is buried in a town too far from home, so the family decides to go get him and bring him home. An unexpected complication during the trip home leads to a strange but touching solution.
In the future, wars will be fought over water, but in Mexico the war has already begun. This documentary contemplates Mexico’s destiny, telling the story of the struggle of its indigenous people to preserve their natural resources and their cultural identity.
Read more: 13 pueblos en defensa del agua, el aire y la tierra
On the official web site of the Brazilian Environmental Institute, the Brazilian wood pernambuco appears on the list of plant species threatened with extinction. Found only in the remnants of the devastated Atlantic Rainforest in the coast of Brazil, this tree has been vital in the manufacturing of fine violin bows and other instruments ever since Mozart was composing his masterpieces in Vienna. A Arvore da Música explores a path to saving the imperiled trees, along with the music that depends on them.
In 1999, two brothers were deported from the United States to Mexico. Within two weeks, one of them overdosed on heroin in a seedy Tijuana hotel room, his body left unclaimed for two months in a mass grave. These U.S.-raised men, military veterans, were deported from the only country they knew—and had sworn to protect—to forge new lives in Mexico. Against the backdrop of increased attention to the U.S.-Mexico border, filmmaker Monika Navarro draws on her family’s experience to explore national identity and ties, the lives of immigrants, and what happens after deportees are sent to a homeland they don’t consider home.
Bracero Stories explores the personal experiences of five former “guest workers” in the controversial US-Mexican government Bracero Program, which granted temporary work contracts to millions of Mexican laborers between 1942 and 1964. Their stories are interwoven and illustrated with archival materials, creating a composite narrative of the “bracero” experience. Interviews with other participants in the program assess its effectiveness—and its justness. These discussions mirror contemporary concerns about illegal immigration and the possible implementation of a new guest worker program. Ultimately, the film seeks to put a human face on the concept of foreign “guest worker.”
A glimpse into the maestro’s life and music, Cachao: Uno más pays tribute to one of the greatest Afro-Cuban musicians of all time, Israel López “Cachao.” This documentary, produced by the DOC Film Institute at San Francisco State, features a live concert in San Francisco and interviews with musical collaborators including Andy García, John Santos, Ray Santos and Orestes Vilató, who help trace Cachao’s musical journey from his early days in Cuba to worldwide fame and recognition.
Children of the Amazon follows Brazilian filmmaker Denise Zmekhol to the heart of the Amazon rainforest, in search of the indigenous children she photographed 15 years before. The film invites the viewer to see through the eyes of these inspiring, remarkably resilient people, whose lives have been transformed by a road that was carved through their forest home by an outside world. Poetic and visually stunning, this film engages the senses and sympathies as global issues take on a profoundly human perspective.
The jungle madness known as Grissi Siknis is a contagious, naturally bound syndrome that occurs among the Miskito of Eastern Central America and affects mainly young women. Grissi Siknis is typically characterized by long periods of anxiety, nausea, dizziness, irrational anger and fear interlaced with short periods of rapid frenzy in which the victims lose consciousness, and believe that devils beat them, have sexual relations with them, and run away. Traditional Miskito tradition holds that Grissi Siknis is caused by possession by evil spirits or inflicted by a malevolent evil sorcerer. While Western medicine typically has no effect on those affected with the disease, the remedies of Miskito herbalists or healers are often successful in curing the madness.
The life of actress Camila Quiroga (1891-1948) seems to have been forgotten. In 1943 an autobiography in a magazine detailed her trips around Latin America and Europe, and discussed her pro-proletarian film Juan sin ropa (1919). Juan sin ropa’s scheduled release unfortunately coincided with Argentina’s Semana Trágica (“Tragic Week”), when a series of labor revolts in Buenos Aires were violently suppressed. But 60 years after her death, interviewees throughout this documentary bring to light more intricate details and stories about the acclaimed actress that would have been otherwise left forgotten.
For over 50 years, the Kahnawake Mohawks of Quebec, Canada occupied a 10 square-block hub in the North Gowanus section of Brooklyn, which became known as Little Caughnawaga. The men, skilled ironworkers, came to New York in search of work and brought their wives, children and, often, extended family with them. Little Caughnawaga tells the personal story of Mohawk filmmaker Reaghan Tarbell from Kahnawake, Quebec, as she explores her roots and traces the connections of her family to the once legendary Mohawk community through the stories of the women who lived there.
Kanien’ kehá:ka—Living the Language is a two-part documentary series about what it takes to save a language in the Mohawk community of Akwesasne. The documentary examines various aspects and approaches of the Akwesasne Freedom School and its Mohawk language immersion program, which addresses key concepts of tradition, traditional education and identity preservation. The school has been in existence for 26 years with a philosophy “to create Mohawk speakers and leaders for two worlds.”
In 1930, the American Smelting & Refining Company hired William "Bill" Parker to work at the Angangueo mines in Michoacán. Bill arrived with his girlfriend, Joyce Hartzell, a photographer. Bill and Joyce fell in love with the town and its simple ways and decided to make it their permanent home. Bill was an amateur filmmaker and used his 16mm camera to shoot several documentaries portraying day-to-day life in Angangueo and Joyce’s trips around Spain and South America. But Joyce died in 1975, victim to pulmonary cancer, and 36 days later, Bill shot himself in the head. Bill’s diary describes those last few days: from Joyce’s passing to his own suicide. The movies and photographs made by the Parkers over the years become the material that relives their memories and tells the story of these two lovers that even death couldn’t tear apart.
Los herederos is a portrait of the young children in the Mexican countryside who begin to work at an early age. The film focuses on their daily struggle for survival and their activities in farming, sculpting and painting “alebrijes,” shepherding, making bricks, weaving, looking after their siblings, collecting water, harvesting tomato, chili, maize, and laboring in a myriad of other activities. They have inherited tools and techniques from their ancestors, but they have also inherited their day-to-day hardship because, as generations pass, child workers seem to remain captive in a cycle of inherited poverty.
Rosa is a Mexican woman who, in 1999, at the age of 17, migrated illegally to Austin, Texas. In January of 2003, she was arrested for suspicion of murder and then sent to trial in August 2005. Rosa’s imprisonment in a foreign country, the judicial process, the verdict, the separation from her family, and her powerlessness make Mi vida dentro a true and revealing look into the life of Mexican immigrants in the United States.
Tito Juan Vera used to work as film projectionist, unveiling the magic of the movies to people in the Paraguayan interior. In Profesión cinero, Tito tells of his experiences and commemorates the golden days of cinema, through the thousands of film reels, posters, and equipment conserved from his job.
As part of its new policy to end the “catch and release” of undocumented immigrants, the U.S. government opened the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in May 2006 as a prototype family detention facility. The facility is a former medium-security prison in central Texas operated by the Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison operator in the country. The facility houses immigrant children and their parents from all over the world who are awaiting asylum hearings or deportation proceedings. As information about troubling conditions at the facility leaks out, three activist attorneys seek to investigate and address the issues.
The Other Side of Immigration examines the causes and effects of international migration from the perspective of rural Mexican communities where large numbers of people leave to work in the United States. The film explores how NAFTA, Mexican agricultural policies, and Mexican politics have stimulated emigration over the past two decades; the extent to which households in rural Mexico directly and indirectly depend on money that undocumented immigrants send home; and the effects of emigration on families and children left behind in rural Mexico.
What do you do if the day your first child is to be born is also the same day your father is to be executed? If you are twenty-six-year old Manny, you use your father's impending execution as an excuse to flee the daunting responsibility of fatherhood. There's only one problem: Manny lives in Monterrey, Mexico and his father sits in on death row in Texas. Against his wife's wishes, Manny embarks on an ill-planned quest to cross the border to see his father, hoping that the trip will buy him time and insight into his upcoming responsibility.
Ten year old Lizzy and Raúl live next door to each other in a duplex. Through the wall, Raúl hears Lizzy’s parents argue night after night as they head toward divorce, prompting him to try to find a way to help his friend escape her traumatic situation. This is a story about two children and their strength to overcome the common tragedies of everyday life.
Exiled In America is a film that explores immigration issues in the United States related to detention and deportation from the point of view of those most affected: children. Over 1.5 million immigrants have been deported since 1996—a policy that has torn families apart and led to human rights violations. Exiled In America tells the story of five siblings who struggle to live in America after their mother was deported to Mexico.
Los ojos de Javier is a short narrative written and shot in two days for the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities. It tells the story of Javier, who wakes up one day to find that his eyes have walked out on him. They did not bother trying to explain the reasons why, they just packed up their stuff and left. The film deals in a light, comedic way with the serious issues of soul disability and loss of identity.
Six months after Bob Mader passed away in 2005, his son, Austin filmmaker Berndt Mader, discovers his father’s camera loaded with a last roll of film. In an attempt to deal with his grief, Berndt decides to finish this final roll in the small Mexican village of Tlacotepec—a town his father had visited and photographed 40 years before. On his journey to this obscure Mexican village, Berndt is diverted to the country of Belize where his sister has run into legal trouble in her adoption of a Belizian baby. After this detour and other misadventures, Berndt finally makes it to the town in Mexico. There he discovers there are possible connections to the past and answers to the questions of his own memory.
On May 20th, 1997, the team leader of a four-man US Marine unit conducting a counter-narcotics mission near border-town of Redford, Texas shot and killed 18-year-old Esequiel Hernández, Jr. within sight of the Hernández home. It was the first time an American citizen had been killed on US soil by the military or National Guard since 1970. None of the marines was ever charged with a crime. Compelled by the current political climate on the US-Mexico Border, the marines agreed to be interviewed for the first time for The Ballad of Esequiel Hernández. The film contrasts their frustration and guilt at having killed one of the citizens they were pledged to protect, with the anger and grief of a family whose son died at the hands of their own military. Narrated by Texas’ own Tommy Lee Jones.
This is the story of the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas, a Native American tribe indigenous to the state. Though they have been present in Texas and the surrounding areas for hundreds of years, their story is hardly taught and their existence is not recognized. In October 2008, members of the Lipan Apache Tribe opened the first museum for the continuation and preservation of their culture. This documentary aims to bring awareness to one Native American group that has become endangered through centuries of oppression and assimilation. As Lipan Tom Castillo expressed, “Hopefully now we can tell our story. Without fear.”
Salvador Santos—bald, obese, and 33—does not look the superhero type. But after a strange inter-dimensional traveler warns him that his best friend, multimillionaire Arturo Antares, is actually a tyrant from another dimension who has been hiding in Arturo’s body, he has no other choice but to accept the challenge. His years of experience as a comic book artist will come in handy, especially when it comes time to save the love of his life, Laura Luna, from the evil grip of Nova.
Away from its body, the cut-off head of Juan Pérez The Great (a fifth class magician from a small circus), starts remembering how he lost his head to a guillotine. After a terrible six year crisis, the Circo Aztlán (where our magician has lived for so many years), had started cutting acts out. In order not to lose his job, Juan Pérez promised to stage a sensational decapitation act, which could return the circus to its glory days. Running out of time, and without a penny to build the machinery needed for his act, Juan Pérez was forced to steal an original Guillotine from a museum, unaware of its terrible curse.
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