Latin American Film Festival Takes Place on Campus Each Thursday in October
09/29/2014
Jacksonville State University's Department of History and Foreign Languages in conjunction with Spanish and Latin American cinema distribution company PRAGDA and the Spanish Minstry on Education and Culture will present the 2014 Spanish Film Club, "Celebrating the New Wave of Ibero American Cinema," a month-long Latin American Film Festival on the JSU campus during October.
Each Thursday in October at 5 p.m. in Wallace Hall, a different film will be screened. Before each screening there will be a discussion with Dr. Alexandra Martinez. This event is free.
Movies that will be screened include:
Thursday, October 2
WHO IS DAYANI CRISTAL? (¿Quién es Dayani Cristal?)
Marc Silver / Mexico, USA / 85 min / 2014 / English and Spanish with English subtitles
5:00 PM
Deep in the sun-blistered Sonora desert beneath a cicada tree, Arizona border police discover a decomposing male body. Lifting a tattered T-shirt they expose a tattoo that reads “Dayani Cristal.” Who is this person? What brought him here? How did he die? And who—or what—is Dayani Cristal? Following a team of dedicated forensic anthropologists from the Pima County Morgue in Arizona, director Marc Silver seeks to answer these questions and give this anonymous man an identity. As the forensic investigation unfolds, Mexican actor and activist Gael Garcia Bernal retraces this man’s steps along the migrant trail in Central America. In an effort to understand what it must have felt like to make this final journey, he embeds himself among migrant travelers on their own mission to cross the border. He experiences first-hand the dangers they face and learns of their motivations, hopes and fears. As we travel north, these voices from the other side of the border wall give us a rare insight into the human stories, which are so often ignored in the immigration debate. Winner of the Sundance 2013 Cinematography award and nominated in the World Documentary Competition, Who Is Dayani Cristal? shows how one life becomes testimony to the tragic results of the U.S. war on immigration.
Thursday, October 9
LA YUMA
Florence Jaugey / Nicaragua / 91 min / 2011 / Spanish with English subtitles
9:00 PM
Nicaragua’s first full-length feature in 20 years, La Yuma tells the story of a young woman who dreams of transcending her bleak life in the slums of Managua by becoming a boxer. Looking beyond the meager possibilities that seem available to her (and ignoring the advice of her gang-member friends), she finds solace and hope in her training and falls in love with a middle-class journalism student.
Thursday, October 16
7 BOXES (7 Cajas)
Juan Carlos Maneglia, Tana Schémbori / Paraguay / 105 min / 2014 / In Spanish, Guaraní, and Korean with English subtitles
5:00 PM
It’s Friday night in Asunción, Paraguay, and the temperature is sweltering. Víctor, a 17-year-old wheelbarrow delivery boy, dreams of becoming famous and covets a fancy TV set in the infamous Mercado 4. He’s offered a chance to deliver seven boxes with unknown contents in exchange for a quick one hundred US dollars. But what sounds like an easy job soon gets complicated. Something in the boxes is highly coveted and Víctor and his pursuers quickly find themselves caught up in a crime they know nothing about. Reminiscent of Slumdog Millionaire, 7 Boxes was declared of Cultural Interest by the National Secretary of Culture of Paraguay.
Thursday, October 23
THE FACILITATOR (El Facilitador)
Victor Arregui / Ecuador, Chile, USA / 83 min / 2014 / Spanish with English subtitles
5:00 PM
A political thriller about human rights, The Facilitator is one of the most successful films to come out from Ecuador in the last few years. When Miguel, a successful businessman finds out about his illness, he asks his estranged daughter Elena to come back to Ecuador. She complies, but keeps a cold and distant relationship with him, opting for spending most of her time with friends, between drugs and alcohol. After a close call with the law, Miguel sends her to spend some time with her grandfather at the family’s estate. In this nostalgic house that bring up so many memories and nightmares, Elena meets her childhood friend Galo, who now promotes water access rights for the indigenous community. Elena is compelled by their way of life and gets involved with the political organization of the community. When the nightmares intensify, Elena starts digging behind the reports of the car accident that supposedly killed her mother. Elena will gradually understand that among family secrets, crimes, corruption, and dark perversions commitment and beauty can emerge.
Thursday, October 30
THE DEATH OF PINOCHET (La Muerte de Pinochet)
Bettina Perut, Ivan Osnovikoff / Chile / 67 min / 2011 / Spanish with English subtitles
5:00 PM
On December 10, 2006, General Pinochet dies unexpectedly in Santiago’s Military Hospital. For 24 hours, his death reawakens the political divisions that marked Chile’s recent history with death and violence. Using original footage and the testimonies of four characters who lived through that day of profound contrasts and shades of surrealism, the film relates the end of a key chapter in Chile’s history. A work between tragic and comic, surprising portrait of Chilean society.
The Spanish Film Club series was made possible with the support of Pragda, The Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports of Spain, and SPAIN arts & culture. PRAGDA is a film distribution company created to promote, disseminate, and maintain the legacy of Spanish and Latin American cinema through unique cultural initiatives.