This Week in Cinema Tropical, March 11 — 18
This week, experience the sights and sounds of the Caribbean with several Caribbean-focused programs, plus many others.
First, join us this Thursday at Anthology Film Archives for a screening of Noelí Overseas
from Dominican filmmaker Laura Amelia Guzmánand Mexico’s Israel Cárdenas. A perfect companion to the filmmakers’ acclaimed Sand Dollars and weaving a cross-Atlantic narrative, this feature follows Yanet, a Dominican actress, as she confronts a world outside of her own and attempts to reconcile her Caribbean roots with her new, unfamiliar European surroundings.
Dive further into the rhythms of the islands with the ‘Caribbean Film Series’ program, opening this week at the BAMcinématek.
This fifth anniversary festival will present a range of shorts and feature films centered on robust representation of this diverse region. On Saturday, March 16, confront history with Puerto Rican filmmaker José Manuel Dávila Marichal‘s electrifying documentary 1950: The Nationalist Uprising, detailing the little-known uprising against the United States’ control over Puerto Rico, or, on Sunday, March 17 catch the festival’s retrospective of The Jara Collective – a group of leftist cinephiles influenced by the politically-committed New Latin American cinema of the 1960s who formed to produce daring films that confronted Guyana’s own political, social and economic struggles as an emergent postcolonial nation.
Finally, if you haven’t already had a chance to catch Dominican filmmaker Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias’ powerful story of pain, homecoming, faith, and revenge, Cocote is returning to New York for this special program. Cocote, “an accomplished, intense, disquieting film about dislocation and sacrifice” (The Guardian) screens this Sunday. Not to be missed.
Bonita semana and happy watching!
NOELÍ OVERSEAS
‘IF YOU CAN SCREEN IT THERE: PREMIERING CONTEMPORARY LATIN AMERICAN CINEMA’
Thursday, March 14, 7:15pm
Anthology Film Archives
(Noelí en los países, Laura Amelia Guzmán and Israel Cárdenas, Dominican Republic, 2017, 54 min. In Spanish, English, and French with English subtitles)
Yanet Mojica, a young actress, made her cinematic debut alongside Geraldine Chaplin in Laura Amelia Guzmán and Israel Cárdenas’s 2014 film, Sand Dollars. In their more recent documentary/fiction hybrid, Noelí Overseas, Mojica takes center stage. “Hired to star in a fashion infomercial to be shot in Venice in the majestic Hotel Excelsior, Yanet sets foot in Europe for the first time. Once the prudishness of the crew members has been overcome, she joyously drags them along into a Caribbean universe made up of rhythm and dance. Although the filmmakers still dream of exile, the empowerment of a young woman is what ultimately manifests itself here. Yanet lives on the screen through her strength and her grace. She tackles every moment with lightheartedness. The image and its relationship with the sound design lends an almost phantasmagorical feel to certain sequences while depicting these elements through a discerning distance.” —Visions du Réel
‘CARIBBEAN FILM SERIES’
‘A 5TH ANNIVERSARY FESTIVAL’
Thursday, March 14 – Sunday, March 17
BAM Rose Cinemas