Bernardo Arellano, 2011, 2011, Feature, Mexico, 75min, Spanish with English subtitles
Francisco, an autistic man, alone and ignored finds amistad with a pet rodent. His new found friend causes him to be thrown out of home. He begins to inhabit the forest where the beauty of nature is mesmerising, but soon realises the changing seasons will make life difficult for him. The films captures an elegant jouney of healing and shares with us a new way of life in a silent forest.
What if this happened in your backyard?
Carlos Carrera, 2009, 2010, Feature, Mexico, 122min, Spanish,Tzotzil, English with English subtitles
Since the mid 1990’s hundreds of young women have gone missing or have been murdered around the border town of Juarez, Mexico. Most of the victims are low-paid laborers who have been drawn to the town by the possibility of work at American-owned factories. Backyard is the gripping story of Mexican police captain Blanca Bravo who is sent to Juarez to investigate the murders. As the investigation unfolds, Bravo is exposed to the lives of the victims and discovers a police force and local power structure that has ceased to care. Can the new police captain, Blanca Bravo, stop the savagery? Directed by cult arthouse filmmaker, Carlos Carrera and starring the legendary Jimmy Smits this film is one of the Festival highlights.
Carlos Enderle, 2009, 2010, Feature, Mexico, 100min, Spanish with English subtitles
The comedy that swept the awards at the Guadalajara International Film Festival.
Presented in association with Ambulante Film Festival
Luis Rincón, 2009, 2010, Documentary, Mexico, 80min, Spanish with English subtitles
A documentary that revisits a famous film location: the slums where Los Olvidados was shot more than fifty years ago. The people of this area of Mexico City still live by the train tracks, just like they did in Buñuel’s masterpiece.
The Forgotten Tree captures fragments of the lives of Juan, Gaby, Noemí, and Ivonne, who attempt to escape the cycle of extreme poverty and violence in which they live. However, the decisions they make only seem to sink them further into the abyss of their grim everyday life and their tragic fate.
Mando Alvarado, Michael Ray Escamilla, 2009, 2010, Feature, Mexico, United States, 94min, Spanish with English subtitles
There’s no place like home…even if home is not all that great.
This session will be followed by an engaging discussion with a guest panel. Entry by donation courtesy of Dendy Cinemas, arrive early to get your seat!
Greg Brosnan, Jennifer Szymaszek, 2009, 2010, Documentary, Guatemala, Mexico, United States, 30min, Spanish/English with English subtitles
When the US government stormed a Kosher meat plant in the American heartland arresting nearly 400 undocumented workers, a Guatemalan village wept. The biggest immigration raid in US history severed an economic lifeline to one of the poorest corners of the Western Hemisphere while pushing an Iowa
farm town to the brink of collapse.
A powerful and topical documentary about the human cost of deportation and detention of immigrants.
This session will be introduced by the film’s Screenwriter and Editor Jose Luis Fernandez. Fernandez will participate in the post screening panel discussion. Entry by donation courtesy of Dendy Cinemas, arrive early to get your seat!
Jose Álvarez, 2009, 2010, Documentary, Mexico, 72min, Huichol, Spanish with English subtitles
In this visually arresting documentary, the Huichol people, an indigenous tribe in Mexico, offer rare access to their traditional Peyote pilgrimage to the sacred region of Wirikuta. The filmmakers were allowed unfettered access to the group’s rituals and daily lives over a two-year period with only one ceremony off limits: the deer hunt. For this they trained a few male hunters of the tribe to operate the camera turning it into a stunning collaboration between the film crew and these traditionally very private people.
Presented in association with Ambulante Film Festival
Natalia Almada, 2009, 2010, Documentary, Mexico, United States, 83min, Spanish with English subtitles
Sundance Film Festival’s 2009 Documentary Directing Award winner!
Paz Fabrega, 2010, 2010, Feature, Costa Rica, France, Mexico, Netherlands, Spain, 83min, Spanish/English with English subtitles
Beautiful first feature by Costa Rican filmmaker Paz Fabrega.
A riveting tale that juxtaposes the danger and majestic beauty of Mexico.
Alan Jonsson, 2008, 2009, Feature, Mexico, 92min, Spanish with English subtitles
Homing pigeons, drug lords and the Virgin of Guadalupe all come into play in Morenita. Add familial ties and the testing of one’s faith and the result is an extraordinary film. Mateo Cruz, desperate to save his family from a notorious drug dealer, causes absolute pandemonium when he kidnaps Mexico’s and Latin America’s most adored religious icon, the Virgin of Guadalupe, and demands a ransom! The unexpected and complicated chain of events that follow show how desperation can take even the best of us to our darkest side.