Enredando sombras
Documentary that celebrates 100 years of cinema in Latin America and talks about the origins and the development of cinema in this subcontinent. Its structure is based in 12 short films directed by various Latin American directors. These are: 1) "Los inicios", Iván Trujillo 2) "Cuando comenzamos a hablar", María Novaro 3) "Jugando en serio", Jacobo Morales 4) "De cuerpo presente [Las espirales perpetuas del placer y el poder] Cine Mexicano [1931- 1997]", Marcela Fernández Violante 5) "Cuando quisimos ser adultos", Edmundo Aray and David Rodríguez 6) "Cinema Novo", Orlando Senna 7) "Memorias de una isla, Juan Carlos Tabío 8) "Un grito, 24 cuadros por segundo", Julio García-Espinosa 9) "El día de la independencia", Federico García 10) "¿Sólo las formas permanecen?", Fernando Birri and Pablo Rodríguez Gauregui 11) "Todo final es un principio", Andrés Marriquín.
Juan Carlos Tabío
Jacobo Morales
Marcela Fernández Violante
María Novaro
Orlando Senna
Fernando Birri
Julio García Espinosa
Federico García Hurtado
Ivan Trujillo
Pablo Rodríguez Gauregui
Andrés Marriquín
Edmundo Aray
David Rodríguez
Also Directed by Juan Carlos Tabío
Havana, Cuba, 1979. Flamboyantly gay artist Diego (Jorge Perugorría) attempts to seduce the straight and strait-laced David, an idealistic young communist, and fails dismally. But David conspires to become friends with Diego so he can monitor the artist's subversive life for the state. As Diego and David discuss politics, individuality and personal expression in Castro's Cuba, a genuine friendship develops between the two. But can it last? Strawberry and Chocolate became an instant hit when it was released, and has become a classic of Cuban cinema due to its charming and authentic exploration of a connection between two people under historical circumstances that seem levelled against them.
An unclaimed fortune, grown for centuries in a British bank account, becomes a potential windfall for Bernadito Castiñeiras and the residents of the tiny village of Yaragüey, Cuba. To receive his massive inheritance check, Bernadito must prove his lineage to the Castiñeiras nuns who first populated the region. In an isolated and impoverished town where many residents share the same surname, a feud breaks out between the "Castiñeiras" and "Castiñeyras" families.
After two years in jail, El Isleño returns to the island of La Fe, ruled by the dictator Francisco Gavilán. He arrives with a cinematograph and exhibits "Robin Hood" to the people. The next day the bridge that communicates La Fe to the mainland has been destroyed, and the people plan to overthrow Gavilán.
Mercedes and Pedro, Cuban producers and screenwriters, travel to Spain to close an agreement with Alberto, a Spanish producer. Together, they try to make a film about Cuban reality. A movie about those who leave the island, those who return, but also those who still want to leave but cannot. A simple idea that will slowly become more complicated because Spaniards and Cubans have a very different point of view on this reality.
A surrealist dolly shot. The thesis of the film seems summarized in which the character played by Frank Gonzalez (the fictional director of the film within the film) confesses to end his interviewer: "This film wants the viewer to reflect on the deceptive appearances can be."
At a rundown bus station in rural Cuba, the line of passengers waiting just keeps getting longer. The problem is that every bus that passes by is already full. Their only hope is to wait for the station's bus to be fixed. As the disparate group settles in, relationships start forming between the passengers: Emilio, a young engineer, becomes smitten with a beautiful young woman who is en route to meet her Spanish fiancé, a blind man gets support from the others to go to the head of the line. Frustration and disorder reign when the one bus brakes down and no one can leave. Resigned to working together, the group magically transforms the station into a beautiful place where no one wants to leave.
Gloria, Yolanda's mother, exchanges their old house in Guanabacoa for a modern apartment in Vedado to keep Yolanda away from her boyfriend, but her plans soon backfire.
A young American boy is trying to break into the acting business, and goes to Cuba during a film festival.
A superstitious middle-aged woman falls in love with a taxi driver, while trying to learn the identity of the unseen person tossing eggs at her.
Also Directed by Jacobo Morales
Three stories ("Lo mismo de otra manera", "Félix", and "Te tengo una sorpresa") that delve deeply into issues such as human solidarity, infidelity, and social conflicts in contemporary Puerto Rico.
Explores old age, death, economic hardship and homosexuality, its acceptance and tolerance.
Facing financial ruin, four siblings decide to sell the valuables within their mother's house, without telling her and by embellishing their history.
The film follows the actions of a corrupt police captain, the title-character Ángel Lugo. Lugo is responsible for the wrongful imprisonment of Mariano Farías and the murder of his pregnant wife. After 15 years in a federal prison, Farías is still determined to prove his innocence.
Film consisting of five stories: "Dios los cría...", dealing with brothers' rivalry for an inheritance; "Negocio redondo", about a lawyer selling a property to the Catholic church with guilty feelings; "Entre 12 y 1", where a couple and a close friend get trapped in an elevator; "La gran noche", a night in the life of an old prostitute; and "La otra", where a man alternates between two women.
Returning to Puerto Rico after living abroad for a long time, Paco, out of work, meets successful Nicolás, an old friend from his college years. Nicolás invites him to his house, where Paco meets a woman from his past.
A group of comedians tell everyday stories of a barriada.
A group of filmmakers analyze the situation of their country's cinema while some children record them.
Santiago, a retired accountant, casually meets Angelina during one of his daily walks in Old San Juan. They soon become friends, even though she refuses to give out any personal information.
Also Directed by Marcela Fernández Violante
The perpetual spirals of pleasure and power.
A taxi driver goes missing after driving a passenger out of town.
Analytical view of one of the least reported conflicts of national cinema: the Cristero movement that developed in the regions of western Mexico between 1926 and 1929, highlighting the inability to be faithful to both the Church and the State.
An actor blurs reality and fiction with the character he plays in a soap opera.
Student short film. Unknown plot
What would have been Fernández Violante's first feature film, its production was halted due to the events of 1968. Presumably converted into a short film. It is considered lost.
Student short film. Unknown plot.
A bureaucrat gets help from a union leader to obtain housing and credit but struggles to pay for them after he gets fired from his job.
Eugenia Ramírez is a succesful divorced dentist. She goes out on a business trip only to find her appartment robbed when she returns. Her life soon changes.
Film that chronicles the adventures of a white child or "chavochi" in the Sierra Tarahumara in the State of Chihuahua, the film denounces the timber and the misery of the Tarahumara Indians.
Also Directed by María Novaro
"Alguien se acerca", "Viajeros", "Lilí" and "Azul celeste", four stories directed by Ramón Cervantes, Rafael Montero, Gerardo Lara and María Novaro, respectively.
Dalia's life changes when she has to face her ethnobotanist mother Alzheimer's disease. This is a story of the chemistry of the brain, plants, and of human emotions; of the invisible bonds that unite the living with their dead and with nature, which belongs to us all; and about the Mexican herbalist heritage that tells which plants can help cure the soul.
Looking for a better destiny for their lives, a group of people arrives to Tijuana, in the Mexico-USA borderline. A widow and her children, a chicano woman without a firm identity, a "gringa" writer fascinated with Mexico and her hermit brother, plus a mexican peasant who wants to cross the border are the main characters looking for "the garden of eden".
Siblings Dylan and Andrea set off with their new friends on a marvelous journey of discovery in search of long lost pirate loot.
A woman steals from her drug-dealer boyfriend and runs away. She meets a sympathetic woman on the way who helps her escape.
The daily struggle to survive and raise her young daughter are the only motivation in life of Lola, a young saleswoman at a clothing swap meets. The constant coming and going of her partner is a crisis in the fragile emotional balance of the young. In those moments, Lola seek solace in the love of his daughter and her friend Dora and his eternal love, Duende.
Julia is a phone operator in Mexico City who divides her time between her job, her daughter, and the danzón: a Cuban dance very popular in Mexico and Central America. Every Wednesday, Julia does the danzón with Carmelo in the old Salón Colonia. They've danced for years, but barely know each other. One night, Carmelo disappears without a trace. Feeling lonely and sad, Julia takes a train to Veracruz, where she knows Carmelo has a brother. The sudden trip will change Julia's life forever.
Also Directed by Orlando Senna
A girl from the countryside goes to the city of Belém to take part in the Círio de Nazaré celebrations. Led to prostitution, she wishes to move to the wealthiest Southeast region of Brazil. In a dance club, she meets a truck driver that transports wood. Dreaming with the big city, she asks for a ride, and the two begin a journey through the Trans-Amazon road. In tension with the Brazilian military authorities of the time, the film registers several aspects of the Amazon social tragedy – forest fires, slave work and child prostitution. Awarded in several international festivals, the film was forbidden by the Brazilian censorship. It was only released years later, winning the Brasília Film Festival in 1981.
Also Directed by Fernando Birri
Explores the complex relationship between the spirit, body, and mind. The film is a nightmare with closed eyes because it counts among the most terrible moments of my life, my second exile, which lasted a very long time. Inspired by an ancient Hindu legend.
Tells the story of a poor family, inhabitants of the southern province of Santa Fe, who is forced to move into an abandoned railroad until waters recede Salado river wagon.
As one may gather from the title, this short falls in the lineage of city symphonies common in Europe throughout the 1920s, albeit with a significantly different focus within a markedly divergent context. Defiantly resisting glamorization, the Buenos Aires in Birri’s film belongs to the early risers, drunks, vagrants, lovers, street animals and workers, indispensable in their role of making the city move and look the beautiful way that it does.
Equal parts philosophical treatise and artist’s portrait, this short follows the thoughts and methods of Argentine artist Juan Carlos Castagnino, whose commitment to utopian thinking and radicalism mirror Birri’s own. “Living up to date is living one day in advance”, says the painter, as Birri will go on to pair Castagnino with both the Beatles and Argentine folk songs, cluing one in to his notion of keeping ties to the cultural and the radical present. - Spectacle Theater
Short documentary drawing parallels between the Sicilian people and their history of sacred visual representation.
“My life was the same as that of thousands of gringos: I plowed and sowed the land, and went to the bar on Sunday.” Such is the refrain throughout LA PAMPA GRINGA, which endeavors to relate the sense of community built by the European settlers who in 1865 first colonized the town of Esperanza, located in Birri’s native province of Santa Fe. Largely consisting of juxtaposed daguerreotypes from the period and newspaper printings, LA PAMPA GRINGA exhibits Birri’s ability to weave narratives out of historical documentation in deft, admirable form.
Feature film.
SELINUNTE marks Birri’s first cinematic effort, made during his years studying at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia di Roma.
Also Directed by Julio García Espinosa
The metamorphoses of Juan Quin Quin, in turns bullfighter, guerrilla fighter and sacristan.
An episodic film featuring the musical, choreographic and comedic skills of a variety of actors and actresses.
Cheo visits his friend, Manolo, who he hasn't seen for many years. They drink to celebrate their reunion and fondly recall the times they spent together in years past. As they reminisce, the two friends confront the revolution, evaluate their lives, and bare their souls.
Critical testimony on American war crimes in Vietnam. A film both didactic and conscious of itself, bringing together a number of resources, techniques and documentary styles – a true paradigm of imperfect cinema.
The unfair distribution of land in Cuba encourages the support of the peasants to the revolution.
Pedro is a young peasant who leaves home to join the Rebel Army, based in Sierra Maestra.
Documentary that portrays the life of a coal-mining town south of Havana, around 1955, prior to the triumph of the revolution.
Featured in a musical environment possible light anywhere in the world, adapted to a Cuban city makes good use of music. The argument is based on the desires and efforts of middle-income families, to hold a quinceanera at a level greater than that permitted by the economic status of a family.
Urban reform during the first months of the Cuban revolution is the subject of this documentary
Also Directed by Federico García Hurtado
Fictional reconstruction of the famous “Huayanay Case” that highlighted the age-old opposition between the official country and the real country.
In Fuerabamba, according to the myth, the land dried up since, in ancient times, the world of the community was captured by the Iberian conquerors and taken prisoner in the Pamparqui ranch. For this reason, the Fuerabambinos lost their status as farmers and became rustlers. During all the stages of the hacienda to free the prisoner god and recover their status as farmers, they were always rejected. Laúlico, head of the community, makes decisions at the hacienda but then finds himself and his people once again.
Kuntur Wachana is a docudrama in which Garcia re-created the 1950s uprising of the Huaran hacienda campesinos against the hacendados, which led to the assassination of two union organizers. The film then follows the travails of the peasants until 1969, when the Huaran Cooperative was formed.
A painful true story of a revolutionary Andian warrior whose strength and devotion to his people influenced many in Latin America, Africa and the West.
Also Directed by Pablo Rodríguez Gauregui
Also Directed by David Rodríguez
The fascist father, the hysterical mother, the funny uncle, the liberal aunt, the senile grandfather, the junkie son and the gay man. The prawn cocktail is served this Christmas.