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It’s a movie-packed weekend for everyone! New York, San Diego, and all the cities in between have a Latino film playing somewhere near them. Fans of the crazy, eccentric genius Alejandro Jodorowsky will have a chance to see him in person at MoMA and watch his first new film in more than twenty years! The director of cult hits El Topo, Holy Mountain, and Santa Sangre is known for this psychedelic surrealist art films. For you SoCal folks, the San Diego Latino Film Festival is in full swing and is showing more than 150 films including a documentary on Mercedes Sosa, a docu-fiction hybrid starring Gael Garcia Bernal, and several films we listed on our Top Ten Latino Films of 2013. Floridians can still catch the last weekend of the Miami International Film Festival. Plus, one of our favorite Chilean films, the charming comedy on post-divorce dating life, Gloria, is still playing in theaters nationwide. It’s another one that made our top ten list for last year. See you at the movies!
The Dance of the Reality
Director: Alejandro Jodorowsky
Playing: Museum of Modern Art, New York
Date: March 14
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Produced and directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky, it is his first film in 23 years. The legendary filmmaker was born in 1929 in Tocopilla, a coastal town on the edge of the Chilean desert, where this film was shot. It was there that Jodorowsky underwent an unhappy and alienated childhood as part of an uprooted family. Jodorowsky will be present for a post-screening discussion.
“Blending his personal history with metaphor, mythology and poetry, The Dance of Reality reflects Jodorowsky’s philosophy that reality is not objective but rather a ‘dance’ created by our own imaginations.”– SXSW Film Festival
Xingu
Director: Cao Hamburger
Playing: New York; Santa Fe, NM; cable VOD nationwide
Opens: March 14
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From acclaimed Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles and the producers of City of God comes Xingu, directed by Cao Hamburger the film tells the incredible true story of the Villas-Boas brothers – Orlando, Cláudio and Leonardo. During their exploration of central Brazil in 1943, they encounter the Xingu indigenous group. Passionately interested by what they discover about the customs and social systems of the cultures they discover, the brothers make a home among them.
When half of a village dies of an influenza epidemic, the brothers devote their lives to protecting the Xingu peoples, preserving Xingu culture and to the creation of a Xingu National Park. Xingu salvages a forgotten and dramatic moment in Brazilian history that remains up-to-date and urgent still today.
Gloria
Director: Sebastian Lelio
Playing: Cities Nationwide
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It’s hard not to feel sorry for Gloria at times. She is clearly very lonely. She’s divorced, works a boring office job, and her children are grown and too busy to return her calls let alone spend time with her. She finds solace at a nightclub, drinking and dancing the night away. On one of these outings she meets Rodolfo, also newly divorced. He’s nervous around her, fumbling his words but asks her to dance. Then he asks her out on a date. Quickly, Rodolfo falls hard for Gloria. She seems to be smitten as well. Together they are youthful and exuberant and seek new thrills bungee-jumping, paintballing, and on dinner dates. On a romantic weekend trip things start to fall apart. She’s alone again, lost, and longing for a connection. It’s a story of redemption, of conquering chronic loneliness, and of female strength. In her role as the titular Gloria, Paulina Garcia is magnetic, endearing, and radiant. In the end, it’s the ultimate feel good movie that we all often need.
“A divorced woman in her late 50s recaptures her life in Sebastian Lelio’s pitch-perfect, terrifically written Gloria.” — Variety
“Funny, melancholy and ultimately uplifting” — The Hollywood Reporter
San Diego Latino Film Festival
Dates: March 13 – 23
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The 21st annual San Diego Latino Film Festival will be screening more than 150 comedies, dramas, family films, horror flicks, and award-winning documentaries from throughout Latin America, Mexico, Spain, & the U.S. Plus, new films with Latino Cinema’s biggest stars Gael Garcia Bernal, John Leguizamo, Martha Higareda, Kuno Becker, Hector Jimenez, Ana Serradilla, Emilio Rivera, Miguel Rodarte, Karla Souza, Plutarco Haza, Edith Gonzalez y más!
El Huaso
Gustavo Proto is a Chilean who moved his family to Toronto hoping to secure them a better life. Now 58, he struggles with bouts of depression and flirts with the idea of suicide. Named as one of Remezcla’s Best Latino Films of 2013!
Mercedes Sosa: The Voice of Latin America
This haunting music documentary is a deeply intimate journey into the life and music of Mercedes Sosa, one of the most influential singers and personalities of the 20th century.
Who is Dayani Cristal?
Mixing documentary and fiction to reveal the complexities defining the immigration issue, director Marc Silver’s hybrid film stars Gael Garcia Bernal as a migrant making his way from Latin America up to the U.S./Mexico border.
Ghetto Klown
No topic or controversy is off-limits in superstar John Leguizamo’s fifth HBO solo special adapting his Drama Desk Award-winning one-man stage show of the same name. Hilarious, edgy, and poignant, Leguizamo dissects contradictions facing current topics such as race, identity, and gender with his patented wit and subversive point-of-view.
My Sister’s Quinceanera
Using a cast of Mexican-Americans with no previous acting experience, Aaron Douglas Johnston creates a film of raw emotion and honesty. Set in a small town in Iowa, the Garcia family comes to grips with life’s changing routines and expectations. Named as one of Remezcla’s Best Latino Films of 2013!
Somos Mari Pepa
Alex, a 16-year-old teenager who lives with his grandmother, has various plans for the summer: writing a new song with his rock band, finding a job, and having his first sexual experience.
Miami International Latino Film Festival
Dates: March 7 – 16
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The 31st annual Miami International Film Festival is considered the preeminent film festival for showcasing Ibero-American cinema in the U.S., and a major launch pad for all international and documentary cinema. Premiering at this year’s festival will be 93 feature films and 28 short films from 38 countries, participating in competition and non-competition categories.
The Summer of the Flying Fish
An upper class Chilean landowner resorts to increasingly extreme methods to exterminate carp fish invading his new lagoon, creating tense conflict with indigenous Mapuche natives who have lived on the same land for centuries.
Foosball
Academy Award-winning director Juan José Campanella’s follow-up to The Secret In Their Eyes is an epic, animated homage to Argentina’s soccer culture.
Heli
Amid a devastating environment of gang violence, 12-year-old Estela falls in love with a young police cadet who wants to marry her, and brings unexpectedly shocking consequences on her family.
Las Analfabetas
A Chilean woman (Paulina Garcia of “Gloria” in another star turn), who has kept her inability to read a secret for many years, is persuaded to take classes.