F R E E A D M I S S I O N | P U B L I C W E L C O M E
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Director: Marc Silver, Mexico/USA, 2014
Showtime(s) and location(s):
Thursday, October 6, 5:00 p.m., Floyd Theater
Synopsis:
Deep in the sun-blistered Sonora desert beneath a cicada tree, Arizona border police discover a decomposing male body. Lifting a tattered T-shirt they expose a tattoo that reads ?Dayani Cristal.? Who is this person? What brought him here? How did he die? And who?or what?is Dayani Cristal?
Following a team of dedicated forensic anthropologists from the Pima County Morgue in Arizona, director Marc Silver seeks to answer these questions and give this anonymous man an identity. As the forensic investigation unfolds, Mexican actor and activist Gael Garcia Bernal retraces this man?s steps along the migrant trail in Central America. In an effort to understand what it must have felt like to make this final journey, he embeds himself among migrant travelers on their own mission to cross the border. He experiences first-hand the dangers they face and learns of their motivations, hopes and fears. As we travel north, these voices from the other side of the border wall give us a rare insight into the human stories which are so often ignored in the immigration debate.
Winner of the Sundance 2013 Cinematography award and nominated in the World Documentary Competition,Who Is Dayani Cristal? shows how one life becomes testimony to the tragic results of the U.S. war on immigration.
Synopsis from From Pragda, Spanish Film Club promotional site.
Director: German Tejeira, Uruguay/Argentina, 2015
Showtime(s) and location(s):
Thursday, October 6, 7:00 p.m., Floyd Theater
Saturday October 29, 7:00 p.m., Muhammad Ali Center
Synopsis:
URUGUAY’S OFFICIAL ENTRY TO THE ACADEMY AWARDS® – BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Up-and-coming Uruguayan director Germán Tejeira creates a moving, poignant, witty character study in his first feature film.
On New Year’s Eve, three lonely characters travel to a small town in the Uruguayan countryside. Cesar, a divorced man, arrives at the town, where he will have dinner with his ex-wife’s new family in an attempt to win back his daughter’s love. Antonio, a small-time magician, is trying to get to the town to perform his routine at the community center, but his car breaks down. Stranded in the middle of the deserted road, he meets Laura, a woman working at the toll station. Miguel, a performer, prepares to sing at the community center’s New Year’s Eve party. By following their paths to the town, the characters have a chance to change their destinies.
Synopsis from From Pragda, Spanish Film Club promotional site.
Director: Sergio Cabrera, Colombia, 2015
Showtime(s) and location(s):
Saturday October 8, 4:00 p.m., Muhammad Ali Center
Thursday, October 13, 5:00 p.m., Floyd Theater
Synopsis:
Shot in Colombia (because the director didn’t get permission to film in Cuba) and featuring a cast consisting mostly of expatriate Cuban actors, Everybody Leaves is a celebration of freedom and a confrontation of the authoritarian Cuban regime of the 1980s, which led to one of the country’s worst economic crises. The film is based on the award-winning novel by Cuban writer Wendy Guerra.
Eight-year-old Nieve is the object of her parents’ custody battle. Her mother, Eva, is an artist who believes in the revolution and disagrees with censorship or authoritarianism. She is re-married to Dan, a Swede working on the construction of a nuclear plant. Nieve’s father Manuel is a playwright who sacrifices his artistic career to write government propaganda in a remote area of the country.
Through her diary entries, Nieve reveals intimate details of a turbulent family life while painting an authentic portrait of the social and political unrest in Cuba under the rule of Castro.
Director: Jayro Bustamante, Guatemala/France, 2015
Showtime(s) and location(s):
Saturday October 8, 7:00 p.m., Muhammad Ali Center
Thursday, October 27, 5:00 p.m., Floyd Theater
Synopsis:
GUATEMALA’S OFFICIAL ENTRY TO THE ACADEMY AWARDS®
Maria, a 17-year-old Mayan girl, lives and works with her parents on a coffee plantation in the foothills of an active volcano in Guatemala.
An arranged marriage awaits her: her parents have promised her to Ignacio, the plantation overseer. But Maria doesn’t sit back and accept her destiny.
Pepe, a young coffee cutter who plans to migrate to the USA becomes her possible way out. Maria seduces Pepe in order to run away with him, but after promises and clandestine meetings, Pepe takes off, leaving her pregnant, alone and in disgrace. There’s no time to lose for Maria’s mother, who thinks abortion is the only solution. Yet despite her mother’s ancestral knowledge, the baby remains, “destined to live.”
But destiny has more in store for Maria: a snakebite forces them to leave immediately in search of a hospital. The modern world Maria has so dreamt about will save her life, but at what price…
Synopsis from From Pragda, Spanish Film Club promotional site.
Director: Héctor Gálvez, Peru, 2014
Showtime(s) and location(s):
Thursday, October 13, 7:00 p.m., Floyd Theater
Friday, October 28, 7:00 p.m., Muhammad Ali Center
Synopsis:
Peru’s submission to the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film, NN is a compelling drama that won filmmaker Héctor Gálvez the Best Director Award at the Cartagena Film Festival for this powerful, nuanced look at a country’s efforts to come to terms with a dark chapter in its history.
A group of forensic anthropologists digs up the corpses of eight people who disappeared without a trace 20 years ago during a violent political period in Peru. Among them, they find a ninth unidentified corpse. The only thing that can lead to the identity of the man is the vague photo of a smiling girl found in his shirt’s pocket.
Fidel, a thoughtful investigator fascinated by the case, struggles to maintain a scientific approach to his work when a lonely widow shows up convinced this NN (Non Nomine) is her disappeared husband. Should he conduct a thorough investigation that may leave the widow’s plea unanswered or grant her the closure she has been searching for decades?
Synopsis from From Pragda, Spanish Film Club promotional site.
Director: Pedro Larraín, Chile, 2015
Showtime(s) and location(s):
Thursday, October 20, 5:00 p.m., Floyd Theater
Friday, October 21, 7:00 p.m., Muhammad Ali Center
Synopsis: The Club is acclaimed director Pablo Larraín’s taut, blackly comic commentary on individual responsibility, organized religion and the combustible combination of the two.
In a secluded house in a small seaside town live four unrelated men and the woman who tends to the house and their needs. All former priests, they have been sent to this quiet exile to purge the sins of their pasts, the separation from their communities the worst form of punishment by the Church. They keep to a strict daily schedule devoid of all temptation and spontaneity, each moment a deliberate effort to atone for their wrongdoings.
Their fragile stability is disrupted by the arrival of an emissary from the Vatican who seeks to understand the effects of their isolation, and a newly disgraced housemate. Both bring with them the outside world from which the men have long been removed, and the secrets they had thought deeply buried.
Synopsis from From Pragda, Spanish Film Club promotional site.
Director: Diego Rougier, Argentina, 2011
Showtime(s) and location(s):
Thursday, October 20, 7:00 p.m., Floyd Theater
Saturday October 22, 4:30 p.m., Muhammad Ali Center
Synopsis: A film director obsessed with making a western decides to go to Northern Chile in search of a story for his screenplay. Being confused with another, a real adventure begins. Now he will have a good script... If he leaves alive The story of a man with no history. The journey of an author becoming his own character and his impossible return.
Director: Diego Rougier, Argentina, 2015
Showtime(s) and location(s):
Saturday October 22, 7:00 p.m., Muhammad Ali Center
Saturday October 29, 4:30 p.m., Muhammad Ali Center
Synopsis: Fernando and Alma have been married for 17 years. She has a mental disorder. She is bipolar. She kicks him out the house because she learns that he cannot deal with her illness anymore. When Alma meets a young Argentinean guy, Fernando realizes that he is still in love with his wife. But it is too late because she has gone to Buenos Aires. Fernando is determined to get her back and tries to convince her that they are soul mates.
Director: Edson J. Caballero Trujillo, México, 2013
Showtime(s) and location(s):
Thursday, October 27, 7:00 p.m., Floyd Theater
Tuesday November 1, 7:00 p.m., 104W Ekstrom Library
Synopsis: Tino dreams of becoming a “Muxe Queen”. Though born into a male body, as Tino enters adolescence, she begins to dress as a woman and embrace her femininity, all while struggling to resolve a difficult childhood and overcome poverty. Tino considers herself neither male nor female, but rather a “muxe”, a third gender that has been integrated into Zapotec culture. A documentary that films for the first time a muxe child in its growth stage.
This film is a portrait of San Blas Atempa, a town that heroically defended itself against the French invasion of Mexico. The region is known for the strength of its women, and this “magical town”, lost in the wild heel of Mexico, seeks a free and diverse society dominated by femininity.
An intimate journey into the heart of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Atempa, Dreams by the River raises important questions about the conflation of gender and sexual orientation and the influence of culture on gender identity. The film would make a vital contribution to courses in Latin American Studies, Gender Studies, Women’s Studies, Cultural Studies, Anthropology and more.
Atempa has been supported by National Foundation for Arts and Culture.
Synopsis from From Pragda, Spanish Film Club promotional site.