GALA Film Fest: Latin American Innovation (Festival de Cine)

December 9 - 13, 2020 / Diciembre 9 - 13, 2020

ONLINE EVENT! / ¡EVENTO VIRTUAL!

All films in Spanish or Portuguese with English subtitles

Todas las películas en español o portugués con subtítulos en inglés

Tickets: $8 each film / Boletos: $8 por película.

GET A FEST PASS TO WATCH ALL FILMS! $50. Buy Fest Pass

¡OBTÉN UN PASE DE FESTIVAL PARA VER TODOS LOS FILMES! $50. Comprar Pase

Supported in part by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, and presented in collaboration with the Embassy of Mexico, Mexican Cultural Institute, and Cinema Tropical of New York.

LINE UP / SELECCIÓN DE FILMES

LA MAMI - Dir. Laura Herrero Garvin, Mexico/Spain, 2019, 82 min. Documentary/Documental

In the bathroom of the legendary Cabaret Barba Azul in Mexico City, La Mami offers support to the women who come to the club to earn money as dancing or drinking companions to the mostly male clientele. Priscilla is new to this world, but she has to come every night to pay for the care of her sick child.

En el baño del legendario cabaret Barba Azul de Ciudad de México, La Mami da apoyo a las mujeres que van al club a ganarse la vida como acompañantes de hombres. Priscilla es nueva en ese mundo, pero debe regresar cada noche para pagar los gastos médicos de su hijo enfermo.

Q&A WITH DIRECTOR LAURA HERRERO GARVÍN

Recorded Saturday, December 12, 2020 at 4 pm EST

Born in Toledo, Spain, Laura Herrero Garvín studied a Master in Creation Documentary at Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona. In 2010, she arrived in Mexico to study film and work as a director and photographer in different cinema projects. Her feature-length debut, El remolino (The Swirl) premiered at the Locarno Film Festival, was selected in more than 70 festivals, and awarded for Best Documentary in several festivals such as DocumentaMadrid. Her short ¿Me vas a gritar? was part of International Selection in Clermont Ferrand, Málaga, and Palm Spring. Her latest documentary, La Mami, was premiered at IDFA Feature-length Competition and is part of the Official Selection at MoMA Doc Fortnight, SXSW, and Guadalajara, among others. In Mexico, Laura is a member of the film collective Emergenciamx and she is also a co-founding member of La Sandía Digital, Audiovisual Culture Lab. She has worked as Director and Director of Photography during the last 10 years in Latin America and Europe, and has carried out a wide variety of human rights campaigns, all of them with a gender perspective.

LOS SONÁMBULOS (The Sleepwalkers) - Dir. Paula Hernández, Argentina/Uruguay, 2019, 107 min. Drama

Luisa is spending her New Year holiday with her husband and her 14-year-old daughter —a sleepwalker in the teenage awakening— at her mother-in-law’s country house. What was supposed to be a leisure vacation turns out to be an explosive occasion. A poignant and engaging drama about a family in crisis.

Luisa pasa el año nuevo junto a su esposo y su hija de 14 años, quien camina dormida, en la casa de campo de su suegra. Lo que se supone sería un tiempo de disfrute, se convierte en un momento explosivo. Un mordaz drama sobre una familia en crisis.

Starring Érica Rivas (Wild Tales), Luis Ziembrowski (The Boss, Anatomy of a Crime), and Daniel Hendler (The Moneychanger).

A favorite at the international film festivals of Toronto, San Sebastian, and Chicago.

TRÊS VERÕES (Tres Veranos / Three Summers) - Dir. Sandra Kogut, Brazil/France, 2019, 94 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles. Comedy/Comedia

Every December, Edgar and Marta (Regina Casé, The Second Mother) host a lavish family celebration at their luxurious summer house by the beach. In 2015 all seems well, despite some tense phone calls and a guest wearing an ankle monitor. In 2016, the annual party is abruptly cancelled. In 2017, their lives are turned upside down. What happens to the invisible people living in the orbit of the rich and powerful when these lives collapse? A portrait of contemporary Brazil just before the tragedy of 2018.

Cada diciembre, Edgar y Marta hacen una suntuosa fiesta familiar en su lujosa casa de la playa. En el 2015 todo parece ir bien, a pesar de algunas llamadas telefónicas tensas y un invitado usando un monitor en el tobillo. En el 2016, la celebración anual es cancelada repentinamente. En el 2017, sus vidas cambian totalmente. ¿Qué ocurre con la gente invisible que vive alrededor de los ricos y poderosos cuando sus vidas colapsan? Un retrato del Brasil real antes de la tragedia del 2018.

"a brilliant comedy about class disparity and the infinite resourcefulness of those who can never take anything for granted" (Toronto International Film Festival).

Q&A WITH DIRECTOR SANDRA KOGUT

Recorded Saturday, December 12, 2020 at 6 pm EST

Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sandra Kogut has also lived and worked in France and the USA. She started her career as an artist creating performance pieces and installations, before turning to documentary and fiction films. In the early 1990s, she directed the Parabolic People project in Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo, Dakar, New York, Paris, and Moscow. Her work, which hovers at the border between documentary and fiction, has been featured in many venues, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum (New York), and the Harvard Film Archive and the Forum des Images (Paris). Her films have won numerous awards in Berlinale, Rotterdam Film Festival, Mar del Plata Film Festival, Rio Film Festival, Oberhausen Film Festival, Leipzig Documentary Film Festival, Vue sur les Docs, Havana Film Festival, Center for Art and Media Technology (ZKM), and Hungarian Film Week. Her debut fiction film, Mutum, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival (Directors’ Fortnight) and went on to numerous festivals including Toronto, Berlin, and Rotterdam, receiving more than 20 awards worldwide. During a year in Berlin as a guest of the DAAD Künstlerprogramm in 2011, she wrote the script of her feature film Campo Grande (2015), which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and received multiple international awards.

VENDRÁ LA MUERTE Y TENDRÁ TUS OJOS (Death Will Come and Shall Have Your Eyes) - Dir. José Luis Torres Leiva, Chile/Argentina/Germany, 2019, 89 min. Drama

In this intensely felt tone poem about mortality and selfless love, Amparo Noguera (A Fantastic Woman) and Julieta Figueroa star as longtime lovers who must face the inevitable when one of them is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Refusing treatment, they retreat to a secluded cabin where they rediscover their love for one another.

En este intenso poema sobre mortalidad y amor desinteresado, Amparo Noguera y Julieta Figueroa co-protagonizan como las amantes que deben enfrentar lo inevitable cuando una de ellas es diagnosticada con una enfermedad terminal. Negándose a recibir tratamiento, se aislan en una cabaña lejos de todo, en donde redescubren su mutuo amor.

LAS MIL Y UNA (One In A Thousand) - Dir. Clarisa Navas, Argentina/Germany, 2020, 120 min. Drama

Set in a community of project houses in Argentina, the film explores deep friendship and sexual awakening. When Iris (17) meets Renata (20), a young woman with a tough past, she feels immediately attracted to her. Iris will have to overcome her fears and struggle with her insecurities in order to experience first love in a very hostile environment where desire adopts many forms in the darkness, and gossip can turn into a hostile weapon.

Ambientada en una comunidad popular argentina, el filme explora la amistad y el despertar sexual. Cuando Iris (17) conoce a Renata (20), una mujer con una pasado tomentoso, se siente inmeditamente atraída por ella. Iris tendrá que superar sus miedos y luchar contra sus inseguridades para abrirse al primer amor, en un ambiente hostil en el que el deseo adopta formas oscuras y el chisme puede ser usado como arma.

SANCTORUM - Dir. Joshua Gil, Mexico/Dominican Republic/Qatar, 2019, 83 min. Drama

In a small town caught in the crossfire between the military and the drug cartels, one day a mother does not return home from the marijuana fields where she works. Her anguished son asks his grandmother where his mom went. Struck with grief, the grandmother tells him to go into the forest and pray to the natural elements that she returns unharmed. As the soldiers arrive and the villagers prepare for their last stand, the awesome power of nature manifests itself.

En un pequeño pueblo atrapado en el fuego cruzado entre los militares y los cárteles de droga, un día una mujer no regresa a casa luego de trabajar en los cultivos de marihuana. Su angustiado hijo le pregunta a la abuela a dónde fue su mamá. Desolada por el dolor, la abuela manda al niño al bosque a rezarle a las fuerzas naturales por el regreso de su madre. El poder la naturaleza se manifiesta, al tiempo que los soldados llegan al pueblo y los residentes se preparan para su última batalla.

Best Director Award at the Morelia Film Festival and Best Film Award at the Santiago Film Festival (SANFIC).

EL FANTASMA DEL CONVENTO (The Phantom of the Monastery) - Dir. Fernando de Fuentes, Mexico, 1934, 85 min. Vintage Film/Clásico, Horror

On a walking tour, a married couple and their best friend are overtaken by nightfall and seek shelter at an ancient monastery. The abbot tells them that the cloister is haunted by the spirit of a monk who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his best friend’s wife. Through the night, the supernatural gains sway until dawn discloses new revelations.

Una pareja casada y su mejor amigo son sorprendidos por la noche durante un paseo a pie y buscan refugio en un antiguo monasterio. El abad les cuenta que el claustro está embrujado por el espíritu de un monje, quien vendió su alma al diablo a cambio de obtener a la esposa de su mejor amigo. Durante la noche, lo sobrenatural se hace sentir hasta que el amanecer desvela algunos secretos.