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American West
Spanish Cinema Now
YFF: Kicking
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Les Paroisses...
Independents Night
The Wobblies
Leo Awards
Norwegian Cinema
David Cronenberg
Bruno Dumont
Ubisoft
Chinese Cinema
Golden Silents
Independents Night
YFF: Ariel
Protocols of Zion
Avant-Garde
Shochiku
Scanners
Rendez-Vous
Remembering Susan
FCS: Rip Torn
FCS: Director's Label
Tim Burton
Tom Schiller
Technicolor Dreaming
I Love to Singa
Cartoon Musicals II
Amos Gitai
Latinbeat 05
Nicholas Roeg
Archive 2005 - To April
Archive 2004 - WRT
Archive 2003 - WRT
Archive 2002 - WRT
Archive 2001 - WRT
Archive 2000 - WRT
Archive 1999 - WRT
Archive 1998 - WRT
Archive 1997 - WRT
Archive 1996 - WRT
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The 21 films from nine countries
in this year's Latinbeat are as varied as Latin America
itself. They range from black comedy (The Heart
of Jesus, Bolivia; My Best Enemy, Chile)
to politically charged personal stories (Sisters,
Argentina; The King, and Step Forward,
all from Colombia); to astounding, fascinating documentaries
(Black Bull, Mexico; The Immortal,
Nicaragua; Odd People Out, Cuba). While Latinbeat
features award-winning films from well-established
national industries like Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico,
we are especially happy to show three films from Colombia,
as well as works from countries rarely represented
in the Latin American film landscape, such as Bolivia,
and Nicaragua. See showtimes below for Q&As with
directors.
Very much an ‘actor’s
actor,’ Federico Luppi first drew national attention
with his outstanding performance in Leonardo Favio’s
Romance of Aniceto and Francisca (1967).
Throughout the 70s he worked with some of Argentina’s
finest directors — Hector Oliveira, Raul de
la Torre, Fernando Ayala. But it was with the 1981
Time of Revenge that Luppi truly became an
international presence; also marking the beginning
of a close collaboration with its director, Adolfo
Aristarain. Beginning in the 90s, Luppi became increasingly
popular in Latin American and in Spanish films; he
also worked with American filmmaker John Sayles in
Men with Guns. Recently, Luppi also directed
his own first film, Pasos, in Spain. Here’s
a chance to discover — or enjoy once again —
the special artistry of one of the greatest actors
working anywhere today, Federico Luppi. UPDATE:
Due to unforeseen circumstances, we regret that Federico
Luppi is unable to attend Latinbeat.
Latinbeat 2005 has been curated by Cord Dueppe, Marcela Goglio
and Inés Aslan.
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In this poignant absurdist comedy, a
Bolivian government ministry worker named Jesus has a heart
attack one day at work. His wife leaves him taking their
life savings, and sticking him with the hospital tab. Jesus
uses the record of a man suffering from terminal cancer
who shares his name to gain indefinitely covered hospitalization.
This launches a cat-and-mouse game between the insurance
company and Jesus, who finds himself in the maternity ward
before being transferred to a terminal patient room overseen
by nurse Beatriz. Director Loayza has crafted a very funny
and poignant film.
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WED SEPT 7: 1:00 PM
THU SEPT 8: 7:15 PM
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Set in 1978, this beautifully humanistic film about
the futility of war, follows
the story of a Chilean border patrol unit that gets lost on their march to
the Argentinian border. When the soldiers set off, their goal is to “kill
five Argentine soldiers each with 20 bullets,” but after days of wandering
the pampas encountering no more than a stray dog, they soon become disillusioned
with their role in “the war that never was.” And then something
unexpected happens.... My Best Enemy was a huge box-office hit in Chile and played
at many international film festivals.
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WED
SEPT 7: 3:00 PM
FRI
SEPT 9: 9:30 PM
(Q&A)
SUN SEPT 11: 9:00 PM (Q&A) |
Set in the remote and incendiary border zone between Venezuela
and Colombia, a young Colombian volunteer soldier Pedro is patrolling his country’s
border when he encounters Venezuelan small-time drug-dealer and army deserter
Cheito. While Pedro is dedicated and straight as an arrow, Cheito is a shifty
liar who will do anything to escape from the army. Violence on the border between
the two countries could break out at any moment. Two armies, guerrillas, drug
lords, and various other mercenary opportunists drive the two deeply into an
unusual partnership. But once the friendship gains weight, treachery overcomes
it. – Stephen
Ashton, The Desert Sun
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THU SEPT 8: 1:00 PM
WED SEPT 14: 5:00 PM
MON
SEPT 19: 9:30 PM (Q&A) |
In this delightful black comedy
Hernan, a shy, 24-year-old courier, has lived alone since
his family fled the ravages of Argentina’s economic
crisis for Spain. Desperate for company, he rents a room
to the beautiful Pato, a stunning gas station employee.
She moves in, and to his delight they quickly become lovers.
All goes well until her family — her father, her
mother and a little girl, later revealed to be Pato’s
daughter, arrives from the countryside “for one night
only.” The family is respectful, charming, but also
completely broke. The night comes and goes, days become
weeks, and they show no intention of leaving....
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THU
SEPT 8: 3:15 PM
SUN SEPT
11: 4:15 PM
WED
SEPT 14: 7:00 PM
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Civil wars split nations, but they split
families as well.
The Immortal takes us to the Nicaraguan countryside,
into the shattered world of the Rivera family, whose twin
brothers through a twist of fate fought on opposite sides
of the Contra war.The “Inmortal” of
the title is an ominous evangelical bus traveling
through Nicaragua, offering simplified theology and hollow
redemption to a people hungry for something to give reason
to madness, a metaphor for the family’s and the country's
recovery.
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THU
SEPT 8: 5:15 PM
SAT
SEPT 10: 4:00 PM |
Juan Villegas is a petrol station attendant
who is laid off after 20 years of service. Unemployed at his
age and without any kind of professional skill, Juan can’t
see a way out. Chance leads him to carry out a small car repair
job at a farm, for which he’s paid with a striking-looking
dog. Juan soon realizes that his future lies with the dog
and contacts Walter, a man who prepares dogs for shows in
his spare time. A long period of training then begins for
both the dog and the man — a bumpy road that will immerse
Juan and the audience in an array of unexpected delightful
twists and turns.
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THU SEPT 8: 9:15 PM
THU SEPT 15: 8:30 PM
SAT SEPT 17: 3:30 PM |
Pedro Bengoa (Federico Luppi), a demolitions
expert and former radical, gets a job at a copper mine in
southern Argentina using forged identity papers. Now in middle
age, he wants simply to make some money for his family and
to leave activism to others. When he reports for work at the
mine, Pedro is astonished to find Bruno (Ulises Dumont), an
old political ally, also working under an assumed name. Bruno
is bitter about his life, and little by
little, he persuades Pedro to join him in a scheme to defraud
the mine out of several hundred thousand dollars.
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THU
SEPT 9: 1:00 PM
THU
SEPT 9: 6:30 PM |
During the carnival celebrations
of 1959, the social and sports club Luna de Avellaneda
was in full swing. Today it is barely a shadow of
its former self. Román Maldonado (Ricardo Darín),
already in his forties, has been devoted to the club
most of his life, but the cracks in his private life
are becoming even more difficult to ignore. One day,
the idea of selling the place to build a casino on
its premises is presented, and the time to make difficult
decisions arrives. With the same light and humorous
touch of his previous films, Moon parallels
the story of the club with the history of Argentina.
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FRI
SEPT 9: 3:15 PM
SUN
SEPT 11: 6:15 PM |
Martin is the name shared by both father
and son, yet beyond that they seem to have little in common.
A near brush with death brings young Martin, known as “Hache,” from
Buenos Aires to live with his expatriate father (Luppi) in
Madrid; encouraged and at times provoked by the elder Martin’s
sometime lover and full-time best friend, father and son engage
in an emotional mano a mano that traces the faultlines of recent
Argentine history.
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SAT
SEPT 10: 1:00 PM
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Federico Luppi plays Fuentes, a government doctor, all white hair and good
suits, who leaves his dignified life to track down his students who were sent,
armed with medicines and high ideals, into remote areas of an unnamed Latin
American country. The journey involves the getting of wisdom and the loss
of faith, as Fuentes discovers the horrors that befell his protégés.
Of the beautifully told episodes, the most harrowing involves a priest (Damián
Alcázar) whose Christian courage fails him in his, and others', hour
of need. – Anthony Lane
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SAT
SEPT 10 : 6:00 PM (Q&A with John Sayles)
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Pedro Rey owns a bar in a rough neighborhood in Cali, Colombia.
His world changes when he meets an American who introduces
him to the drug trafficking business. Soon Pedro turns into
the undisputed city’s kingpin. The usual
storyline of the rise and fall of a gangster is given a special
meaning in The King as it chronicles the beginning of the
Colombian drug trade in the 70s, with its implications of
American involvement and social corruption. First-time director
Antonio Dorado moves his narrative at a brisk pace, showing
the sleazy, colorful, violent, and excessive world of one
Pedro Rey.
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SAT
SEPT 10 :
9:30 PM
TUE
SEPT 13: 2:45 PM |
Funny Dirty Little War is set on a day in 1974, shortly before Peron’s
death, in a small town called Colonna Vela, where the rickety alliance between
the Peronist right and left falls completely to pieces. The day begins much
like any other. A decrepit automobile, decorated with the head of a dragon
on its hood and a dragon’s tail on its rear, moves slowly through the
streets while its driver, using a not-great public-address system, announces
a once-in-a-lifetime sale at the local department store. Ignacio Fuentes (Federico
Luppi), the town’s practical, seemingly apolitical administrator, has
a brief argument with Suprino (Hector Bidonde), the local Peronist party boss
who has bought a van from Ignacio but hasn’t as yet paid for it. What
follows is a mordantly funny and furious film that quickly evolves into a
harrowing, satiric demonstration of the ease — and self-righteousness — with
which quite commonplace “good” people can turn murderously mean. – Vincent
Canby, The New York Times
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SUN
SEPT 11: 2:15 PM
TUE
SEPT 13: 1:00 PM
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Latin America’s leading purveyor of politically engaged cinema is back:
Sergio Bianchi returns with a caustic, highly provocative look at that most
untouchable of subjects in his native Brazil: race relations. Loosely based
on Machado de Assis’s short story Father Against
Mother, What
Is It Worth? contains a series of vignettes that point up the contradictions
in even the most progressive and open encounters between Brazilians of various
ethnic backgrounds. Moving between different eras of Brazilian history, Bianchi
proposes that little has changed since slave days, even if some of the outward
appearances have.
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TUE SEPT 13: 4:45 PM
SUN SEPT 18: 8:45 PM |
It is 1939 and General Franco's right-wing Nationalists are
poised to defeat the left-wing Republican forces. 10-year-old Carlos is left
in an isolated orphanage run by a headmistress, Carmen (Marisa Paredes)
and a kindly professor, Casares (Federico Luppi). Despite their concern for him,
Carlos never feels completely comfortable in his new environment. He is haunted
by the ghost of a young boy with dire predictions for the defenseless orphanage.
Creepily atmospheric and haunting, The Devil’s Backbone is both a ghost
story and an intelligent political allegory.
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TUE SEPT 13: 9:00 PM
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Financial speculation is rampant in
Argentina, and as a result of delirious deals struck while
the dollar was devaluated, the country is suffering one
of its worst financial crises. In this searing political satire, a small entrepreneur (Federico
Luppi) believes he is finally on the road to becoming a rich man after a friend
he hasn’t seen in many years invites him to participate in a huge financial
venture. Only when it is too late does he realize how his job as the front
man in this shady enterprise will jeopardize not only his life, but the lives
of his closest friends and relatives who entrust their savings to him.
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WED SEPT 14: 9:00 PM
FRI SEPT 16: 5:00 PM |
Sisters is the feature debut of
writer/director Julia Solomonoff. The film tells the story
of two exiled Argentinean sisters, journalist
Natalia (Ingrid Rubio) and Elena (Valeria Bertuccelli), who
are reunited in suburban Texas in 1984. The two women discover
that their late father, an intellectual and journalist, has
left behind an unpublished novel that is the veiled story of
their family during the years of the military dictatorship.
Unanswered questions and troubling memories from the past create
a tension between the sisters as they attempt to face the truth
with their eyes and hearts wide open.
The Film Society of Lincoln Center
and New York Women in Film & Television (NYWFT)
invite you to join us for a brunch (free for ticket
holders of the 1:30 show of Sisters) at 12
noon on Sept 18 in the Frieda and Roy Furman
Gallery of the Walter Reade Theater. Box-office opens at
11:30am. Various filmmakers will attend.
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FRI SEPT 16: 7:15 PM (Q&A)
SUN
SEPT 18: 1:30 PM (Brunch/Q&A)
SUN SEPT 18: 6:15 PM (Q&A)
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Odd People Out is a documentary
about the process of marginalization, repression and denial
of the gay community during the first two decades of the Cuban
Revolution, through the eyes and voice of Cuban writer Reinaldo
Arenas. A counterpoint to the fictional Before Night Falls,
Odd People Out constructs a kaleidoscopic depiction
of Reinaldo’s
life and of the Cuban gay community before
and after the revolution. A unique testimony of a unique
time and a unique artist, it combines rare archival material
with contemporary footage clandestinely shot in Cuba.
Preceded
by
“A short hallucinatory
trip in gritty, lyrical black and white through the
degenerate nightlife of Havana, photographed just
a few years after the revolution.” – Jim
Jarmusch
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FRI SEPT 16: 9:30 PM
MON SEPT 19: 5:00 PM |
Fernando Robles (Federico Luppi), a 60-year-old professor
in Buenos Aires, and his wife, Liliana Rovira (Mercedes Sampietro), a social
worker in the city slums, have a profoundly loving relationship and a son and
grandchildren living comfortably in Madrid. Suddenly, one day Fernando receives
news that he is being forced to retire. In order to survive, they must sell their
cozy city apartment. As part of payment for it, they receive a farm in the state
of Cordoba, where they decide to move, and where an unexpected and new life
awaits them.
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SAT
SEPT 17: 1:00 PM
TUE
SEPT 20: 9:00 PM |
Esteban, Matías,
Alejo, Damián and Guido were born 13 years ago in
a little town 100 kilometers from Buenos Aires, a place
that only dreams of the capital city. They’ve always
been friends, spending the monotonous summer afternoons sitting
on the steps of the hairdresser’s salon. Restless and
impatient, they go through the
most confusing period in their lives: the change from childhood
to adolescence, experiencing sexual
awakenings and rebellion against their parents and
family rules.
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SAT
SEPT 17: 5:30 PM (Q&A)
SUN
SEPT 18: 4:00 (Q&A) |
Fernando Pacheco, aka El suicida (the
suicidal), is a young bullfighter who doesn’t fight in big arenas
but in Mayan communities on the Yucatán peninsula. His
private and his bullfighting life are truly insane, and Black
Bull achieves moments of fascinatingly intense and extreme
realism. The scenes of arguments between El suicida and his
wife are of crude and violent intimacy. The longest bullfighting
sequence clearly shows the reason for Pacheco’s nickname. |
SAT
SEPT 17: 8:00 PM
MON
SEPT 19: 7:15 PM |
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