VLAFF 2015 is running from September 3 to 13, 2015!
This year, UBC’s Latin American Studies program is co-sponsoring a number of films, as follows…
Gente de bien / Good People (Colombia, 2014)
Director: Francisco Lolli
Saturday, September 5, 2015, 7pm
The Cinematheque, 1131 Howe St. #200, Vancouver, BC
Synopsis: Ten-year-old Eric finds himself almost overnight living in a grungy quarter of downtown Bogotá with his father, Gabriel, whom he barely knows. Gabriel is a carpenter by trade, but struggles to make ends meet. He works doing odd jobs for Maria Isabel, an upper middle class woman with children of her own, who takes an interest in their situation. Over the Christmas holidays she invites them to come to stay at her family’s luxurious country villa. But tensions soon begin to crackle between the owners and their guests, exposing the gap between festive pieties about Christian charity and the starker realities of the class structure. Stephen Dalton
La historia se enfoca en Eric, un niño de 10 años, quien es mandado a vivir con su padre, que tiene dificultades para mantenerlo. Su padre hace arreglos ocasionales en casas. Una de sus empleadoras es María Isabel, quien les tiene a Eric y a su papá un afecto especial y los acoge. Es así como ella los invita a pasar la navidad junto a su familia. Pero las tensiones salen a relucir pronto entre la adinerada familia y los pobres invitados, exponiendo la división social y económica que los separa.
Hija de la laguna / Daughter of the Lake (Peru, 2015)
Director: Ernesto Cabellos
Sunday, September 6, 2015, 5pm
The Cinematheque
(Our other community partner for this film is Stop the Institute together with Mining Justice Alliance)
Synopsis: Nélida, a young Indigenous Andean woman, has the ability to speak with spirits of the water, and thus she feels a deep responsibility to defend the pristine lakes that surround her home. She is studying to be a lawyer in Lima so that she can help her community. However before she can finish, a gold deposit valued in the millions is found under her village; the extraction will surely threaten the surrounding waters of her community and she must summon up all her powers to stop the mining. Paired with other stories in the gold mining trade, from the Dutch jewellery designer Bibi van der Velden to stories from communities in Bolivia, this stunning documentary makes a powerful statement on the human cost of gold and what people are doing to raise awareness about its impacts. (adapted from notes by Heather Haynes, Hot Docs)
Nélida es una mujer de los Andes que conoce y conversa con los espíritus del agua. Bajo la laguna que se ha contactado como su madre, yace un rico depósito de oro que seduce a la minera más grande de Sudamérica. Con sus facultades, Nélida y los campesinos que temen quedarse sin agua, enfrentan a la gran industria que ha amenazado por siglos a los pueblos Andinos.
This film is preceded by the short film Cenizas / Cha / Ashes (Guatemala), by director Carla Molina
Synopsis: Margarita and a group of families decide to return to their community—Lote 8—to defend their land and reclaim their lives, seven years after a violent eviction.
Ojos bien abiertos / Eyes Wide Open (Uruguay, 2009)
Director: Gonzalo Arijon
Monday, September 7, 2015, 5pm
The Cinematheque
Synopsis: In 1971, Uruguayan journalist and writer Eduardo Galeano published his landmark work Open Veins of Latin America, in which he comprehensively described the centuries of economic exploitation of Latin America. Almost 40 years later, filmmaker Gonzalo Arijon reevaluates the situation. His search takes him from the soybean plantations of the Brazilian Amazon to the tin mines of Bolivia to the deep jungles of Ecuador. Arijon’s politically committed film allows the local populations to speak for themselves, interspersing this with archival footage of speeches by Hugo Chávez, Lula da Silva and Evo Morales. Galeano himself also speaks—sometimes in poetic language—about how the rise of socialist governments in the early 21st century is benefitting Latin America, and what more can be done.
En 1971 Eduardo Galeano publicó su libro más memorable: Las venas abiertas de América Latina; 40 años después, Gonzalo Arijón toma su cámara en una mano, los textos de Galeano en otra y emprende un viaje, narrado por la poética voz de Galeano mismo, a la América Latina que para muchos es invisible. Pasando por Brasil, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Uruguay… intenta conocer y comprender mejor a esos hombres y mujeres que, desde sus combates cotidianos, forjaron un singular momento histórico.
Hotel Nueva Isla (Cuba, 2014)
Director: Irene Gutierrez
Thursday, September 10, 2015, 5:15pm
The Cinematheque
(Our other community partner for this film is Vancouver Communities in Solidarity with Cuba)
Synopsis: In the early twentieth century, the Hotel Nueva Isla was an emblematic luxury hotel. After the Cuban Revolution, it was confiscated by the State and became a shelter for homeless people. Located in Old Havana, today it is an imposing ruin. Jorge de los Rios, a retired clerk, is one of the few residents who remain there, along with La Flaca, his lover, and Waldo, a young itinerant. As the rest leave for safer places, Jorge clings to his dilapidated home and its buried treasures, slowly digging his way through its debris. Gorgeously shot, the film speaks poignantly to a lost generation who fought in the Cuban Revolution and dreamed of a better society.
El “Hotel Nueva Isla” fue a principios del Siglo XX un emblemático hotel de lujo que luego de la revolución cubana, fue confiscado por el Estado y convertido en un albergue para personas sin hogar. El edificio se ha vuelto cada día más difícil de habitar, manteniendo el refugio para personas que viven al margen de la sociedad. Jorge, un taciturno y misterioso personaje acompañado principalmente por su perro, es un funcionario retirado y uno de los pocos huéspedes que aún quedan allí,. Pero mientras los vecinos se van marchando, Jorge se mantiene aferrado a sus raíces. La cinta le habla simbólicamente a una generación perdida que luchó en la revolución y soñó con una mejor sociedad.
Obra (Brazil, 2014)
Director: Gregorio Graziosi
Friday, September 11, 2015, 3:30pm
The Cinematheque
Synopsis: A young architect embarking upon his first major project is unexpectedly brought face to face with dark secrets from his ancestral past… During the project’s excavation, a clandestine cemetery is unearthed on a plot belonging to João’s family, leaving him grappling with some difficult questions about the means by which his inherited wealth and standing were accrued. Writer-director Gregorio Graziosi uses stark cinematography and dense soundscapes to give palpable presence to the city of São Paulo in this technically striking debut feature about a man compelled to uncover the shadowy truth about his origins. (Diana Sanchez, TIFF)
Na populosa cidade de São Paulo, um jovem arquiteto envolvido na construção de seu primeiro grande projeto, testemunha a descoberta de um cemitério clandestino no terreno que pertence a seus ancestrais. Questionando seu passado e origens, ele entra em conflito com sua consciência, herança familiar e com a memória da cidade que retorna à superfície.
Indigenous Film from BC and Beyond (Shorts Programme) FREE for everyone.
Saturday, September 12, 2015, 7pm
SFU Woodward’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts
PART 1: Ecologies of Healing and Knowing
Curated by Sonia Medel in collaboration with the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival, whose vision is to inspire and connect communities through original, Indigenous film and media arts. These Aboriginal media artists creatively explore and fuse together Indigenous traditions and ways of knowing, to heal, revision, resist and establish art that is encompassing of the diversity of Indigenous identities and perspectives. The works act as portals into epistemologically plural realities. Viewers are challenged to break free of the cycles of quotidian violence that we are all caught within as a result of colonialism, and seek embodied and experiential ways of relating with each other and the natural environment.
PART 2: Mixtec and Zapotec Short Film Showcase
Curated by Luna Marán, director of the Campamento Audiovisual Itinerante (Travelling Audiovisual Workshop) in Oaxaca.
Güeros (2nd Screening) (Mexico, 2014)
Director: Alonso Ruizpalacios
Saturday, September 12, 2015, 7:30pm
The Cinematheque
Synopsis: After pushing his mother to her limit with a prank involving a water balloon and a baby stroller, Tomás is sent to live in Mexico City with big brother Sombra and his roommate Santos, who are up to their own shenanigans while the rest of the students at their university are on strike. Malcontent and in search of a cause, the trio embarks on an oddball quest when they learn their late father’s musical hero, Epigmenio Cruz, a man who once moved Bob Dylan to tears, is dying. The three traverse the city, combating apathy, rebellion and everything in between, to pay their last respects to a forgotten rock music legend.
Tomás lanza una bomba de agua que cae sobre un cochecito de bebé. Puesto que el muchacho se ha vuelto muy difícil de manejar, su madre lo manda a ciudad de México donde estudia su hermano mayor. Tras enterarse que el héroe de su padre, el músico Epigmenio Cruz, está al borde de la muerte; los hermanos deciden embarcarse en su búsqueda. En medio de las manifestaciones estudiantiles de la Universidad de México en 1998, Tomás y su hermano tratan de revivir una leyenda olvidada. Filmada en blanco y negro, rindiéndole un homenaje a la nueva ola del cine francés, esta historia ha refrescado al cine mexicano y la consagró como la cinta más premiada del último año en México.