Watch the Best Latin American Films of the Year in New York This Weekend

Lisandro Alonso is of one of the most original and daring filmmakers currently working in Latin America. His films are characterized by long takes, slow development, minimal script, little dialogue and almost no musical score. In the line of Carlos Reygadas Silent Light and Albert Serra’s Quixotic/Honor Cavalleria, and with echoes of Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring — Jauja is a journey, as in many of his movies, for both the viewer and the main character who embark on an external and internal quest to achieve meaning. Shot in the Patagonia, the film is composed of meticulously framed shots that capture a breathtaking landscape. The format of the image is very unusual, completely square. The result is magical and sublime.

In this documentary, filmmaker Abner Benaim takes audiences back in history to December 1989 when 30,000 U.S. troops invaded Panama because then President George H.W. Bush wanted dictator General Manuel Noriega out of power and to keep control of the Panama Canal, an area the U.S. used heavily for shipping cargo. The invasion’s code name was “Operation Just Cause.” In the doc, Benaim interviews civilians, military personnel, politicians, and even gets to speak to former General Noriega to get his take on the incident 15 years later. Was the invasion by the U.S. justifiable, or was there more to the politics of the time than most people think?

Filmed almost entirely in the Kaqchikel dialect spoken in Guatemala’s coffee-growing highlands, Ixcanul dramatizes the story of María, a young Mayan woman who is promised to the coffee plantation foreman, despite her desire for a lowly coffee cutter named Pepe. Dreaming of absconding with Pepe to a romanticized vision of the United States, María eventually has the encounter with modernity she so yearned for, but not for the reasons she had hoped. In addition to the impressive naturalistic performances from the film’s non-professional cast, Ixcanul’s visuals are extremely powerful, with radiant bronze skin tones, textured interiors, and the requisite breathtaking landscapes.

The makers of Mala Mala hit the streets and clubs of Puerto Rico to film a joyous and often raucous look at the lives of trans women (mostly performers) in San Juan. Though they travel the road to transition differently, they are united in their fight for equality. The trans spokeswomen engage in street-level activism and march in support of an anti-LGBTQ discrimination legislation. But the film is careful not to define its subjects by their struggle, so there’s plenty of glitter and double-stick tape to go along with the blood, sweat, and tears.

Fernández’s film is a psychedelic and hallucinogenic trip into the world of a group of young men and women in the suburbs of Lima. When Luz meets Junior online, she finds someone she can connect with. Junior, who’s obsessed with Mayan prophecies of the end of the world and online porn, eventually meets up with Luz in person kicking off a series of dystopian sequences that suggest the world as we see it may soon be coming to an end. The film mirrors the increasingly warped vision of the world through Luz and Junior’s eyes, with its pixelated and video-based visuals, offering the viewer a chance to experience this apocalyptic image of the modern world.

Schnitman’s debut feature, the winner of the Best Film Award at the Transylvania Film Festival, is a tense marital thriller set in Argentina. When Lucía and Marcelo withdraw a hundred thousand dollars in cash to pay for their new house they don’t realize that upon learning their real estate agent can’t meet them until the following day their relationship will face their greatest challenge yet. “Relax,” Marcelo tells Lucía, “today’s just another day.” But the increasingly claustrophobic and exasperating apartment they share that’s all packed up only makes small disagreements and suspicions grow greater as the day wears on.