Spring 2012
Amigos del Cine Latinoamericano Film Series
“Centering the Margins”
We decided to call our Spring 2012 Film Series “Centering the Margins” because we would like to share some recently movies that portrays intimate life stories from peripheral perspectives. Where is the margin? Can the margin be located inside the center? The margin in this context may be understood as being within the center itself, in the form of, minority, peripheral or fringe perspectives, individual voices or groups. We would like to problematize the limits of the margin and the center uncovering the ways in which the marginal, the excluded, the outsider, always exists within the centers of power and hegemony. An indigenous Andean woman fighting against the mines that have poisoned her people; two individuals trapped in a corrupted system of insurance compensation in the outskirts of Buenos Aires; two Latin American immigrants in Spain embarked upon a secretive relationship; and a child with his father in a rural fishermen town of Quintana Roo trying to connect on a fishing trip in the open sea. All these stories capture the narratives of minorities, migrants and outsiders who inhabit and cross borders as part of their everyday life. By exploring the life, vitality, and political meaning of the margins, we hope with the selection of these films to make visible different forms, complications, and possibilities of marginality.
*****FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC *****
ALTIPLANO (Belgium-Germany, 2009)
Director, Peter Brosens and Jessica Hope Woodworth
Thursday, April 26 2012, 6:30pm
Frick Fine Arts Auditorium
War photographer Grace, devastated by a violent incident in Iraq, renounces her profession. Her Belgian husband, Max, is a cataract surgeon working at an eye clinic in the high Andes of Peru. Nearby, the villagers of Turubamba succumb to illnesses caused by a mercury spill from a local mine. Saturnina, a young woman in Turubamba, loses her fiancé to the contamination. The villagers turn their rage on the foreign doctors, and in the ensuing riot Max is killed. Saturnina takes drastic measures to protest against the endless violations towards her people and their land. Grace sets out on a journey of mourning to the place of Max’s death. Altiplano is a lyrical and probing film about our divided but inextricably linked world.
(Source: http://www.altiplano.info/)
More info: amigoscinelatinoamericano@gmail.com
Some films are adult in nature and may not be appropriate for young audiences.
Sponsored by: the Center for Latin American Studies, the Eduardo Lozano Latin American Collection at Hillman Library, the Hispanic Languages and Literatures Department, and the Global Studies.
CARANCHO (Argentina, 2010)
Director, Pablo Trapero
Thursday, March 15, 6:30pm
Frick Fine Arts Auditorium
"Carancho" is a scavenger bird that can often be seen feasting on road-kill. In Argentina, this same term can also be used to describe scamming lawyers who make a living defrauding the suffering; lawyers who move with impunity in the realm of human pain, such as never before seen in this film of acclaimed, cutting edge writer-director Pablo Trapero. This noir thriller is centering on a doomed love story between Sosa (the lawyer) and Lujan (an ER doctor), using the corrupted system of insurance compensation as a metaphor for an uncaring and corrupted society on one hand and an intimate story of pain and resilience of two individuals working and living in La Matanza, the outskirts of Buenos Aires, on the other. Thanks to Pablo Trapero’s narrative talent as a storyteller and to the impeccable performance of Martina Gusmán (Lujan) and Ricardo Darín (Sosa), this story captivates the spectator in not failing to wonder what will happen from the first to the final scene.
More info: amigoscinelatinoamericano@gmail.com
Some films are adult in nature and may not be appropriate for young audiences.
Sponsored by: the Center for Latin American Studies, the Eduardo Lozano Latin American Collection at Hillman Library, the Hispanic Languages and Literatures Department, and the Global Studies.
Also don’t miss our next screening ALTIPLANO (Belgium-Germany, 2009) on April 26 2012.
More info to come…
RABIA (España-México-Colombia, 2009)
Director, Sebastián Cordero
Thursday, February 2nd, 2012, 6:30 p.m.
Frick Fine Arts Auditorium
This riveting romantic thriller will keep you at the edge of your seat. Two lonely Latin American immigrants embark upon a secretive relationship within a run-down mansion fantasizing of the day they can be together. An angry man with a secret becomes a silent witness to the life of strangers in this drama from Ecuadorian filmmaker Sebastian Cordero. José María (Gustavo Sanchez Parra) is a South American exile who has immigrated to Spain in search of a better life. Jose is working in construction when he meets Rosa (Martina García), a fellow exile who is a maid for a wealthy couple who live in a rambling mansion that has seen better days. Jose has an uncertain temper and when a conflict with his boss turns violent, he finds himself wanted by the law. Adding to Jose's problems, he's in the country illegally, and when he turns to Rosa for help, she hides him in the attic of the home where she works. Rosa's employers (Concha Velasco and Xavier Elorriaga) are none the wiser as Jose slips in and out of the house's many hiding places, spying on their every move as he tries to satisfy his curiosity while remaining out of sight. But the couple has a son (Alex Brendemühl) who is attracted to Rosa, and when he tries to seduce her, the young man doesn't realize a jealous man with a violent streak is watching.
Some films are adult in nature and may not be appropriate for young audiences.
Sponsored by: the Center for Latin American Studies, the Eduardo Lozano Latin American Collection at Hillman Library, the Hispanic Languages and Literatures Department, and the Global Studies.
ALAMAR (México, 2009)
Director, Pedro González-Rubio
Thursday, January 12, 2011, 6:30 p.m.
Frick Fine Arts Auditorium
The story barely qualifies as one – young Natán goes with his Mexican father Jorge on a fishing trip in the open sea off the coast of Quintana Roo, before he is to return with Roberta, his Italian mother, to their home in Europe. Yet in depicting their journey, in which father and son interact not only with one another, but with an environment simultaneously marvelous and mundane, director Pedro González Rubio makes sure we become intimately acquainted with a world that never shouts about its beauty, but that instead delivers it in gently enthralling doses. In a similarly quiet, but powerful, way, we become privy, without feeling like uninvited guests or snoops, to a touching relationship sadly hampered by time and distance. Elegiac and mesmerizing, this excursion into a magical landscape truly seems to respect human and non-human nature while displaying both with uncommon artistry.
Some films are adult in nature and may not be appropriate for young audiences.
Sponsored by: the Center for Latin American Studies, the Eduardo Lozano Latin American Collection at Hillman Library, the Hispanic Languages and Literatures Department, and the Global Studies.
