What to Watch Online This Week at Cinema Tropical
Films Premiering This Week:
Virtual Theatrical Release:
MARIGHELLA
(Wagner Moura, 2019, Brazil, 155 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
A searing and energized portrait of one of Brazil’s most divisive historical figures, Afro-Brazilian poet and politician, the legendary Carlos Marighella – played by famous actor/musician Seu Jorge (City of God). Driven to fight against the erosion of civil and human rights following the CIA-backed military coup of 1964 and the brutal, racist right-wing dictatorship that followed, the revolutionary leaves behind his wife and son to take up arms, becoming a notorious enemy to the power structure. Relentlessly pursued as the government’s number one enemy, Marighella cleverly evades capture, all the while continuing to inflict damage and further enraging his sadistic pursuers.
Opens Friday, Friday, April 30 — Pre-Order Now
50th Annual Edition of ‘New Directors/New Films’
ALL THE LIGHT WE CAN SEE
(Toda la luz que podemos ver, Pablo Escoto Luna, Mexico, 2020, 123 min. In Nahuatl and Spanish with English subtitles)
AZOR
(Andreas Fontana, Switzerland/ France/Argentina, 2021, 100 min. In French and Spanish with English subtitles)
LIBORIO
(Nino Martinez Sosa, Dominican Republic, 2021, 99 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
MADALENA
(Madiano Marcheti, Brazil, 2021, 85 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
A LOVE SONG IN SPANISH
(Ana Elena Tejera, France/Panama, 2020, 24 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
HI, GRANDPA
(Hola, abuelo, Manuela Eguía, Mexico, 2020, 3 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
SUMMITS AND ASHES
(Cumbres y cenizas, Fernando Criollo, Peru, 2020, 18 min. In Quechua and Spanish with English subtitles)
‘New Directors/New Films at 50: A Retrospective’
LUCÍA
(Humberto Solás, Cuba, 1968, 161 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
TWENTY YEARS LATER
(Cabra Marcado para Morrer, Eduardo Coutinho, Brazil, 1984, 119 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
In person and virtual screenings from Wednesday, April 28 through Saturday, May 8
Films Available to Stream Now:
SON OF MONARCHS at the Atlanta Film Festival:
(Hijo de monarcas, Alexis Gambis, Mexico/USA, 2020, 97 min. In Spanish and English with English subtitles)
Employing a rich and romantic visual tapestry, this drama tells the story of Mendel, who grew up enchanted by the migrating monarch butterflies in his native Michoacán. Now, he sequences their DNA in New York while trapeze lessons allow him to experience their flight. On a visit back home to Mexico, the young man finds himself weighing matters of culture, love, and family, recognizing how his own life path has followed the migration of the beloved insects he studies. Part of the Sloan Science on Screen program.
Available to stream nationwide through Sunday, May 2
Virtual Theatrical Release:
THE FEVER
(A Febre, Maya Da-Rin, Brazil/France/Germany, 2019, 98 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
Manaus is an industrial city surrounded by the Amazon rainforest. Justino, a 45 years old Desana native, works as a security guard at the cargo port. Since the death of his wife, his main company is his youngest daughter with whom he lives in a modest house on the outskirts of town. Nurse at a health clinic, Vanessa is accepted to study medicine in Brasilia and will need to be leaving soon. As the days go by, Justino is overcome by a strong fever. During the night, a mysterious creature follows his footsteps. During the day, he fights to stay awake at work. But soon the tedious routine of the harbor is broken by the arrival of a new guard. Meanwhile, his brother’s visit makes Justino remember the life in the forest, from where he left twenty years ago. Between the oppression of the city and the distance of his native village, Justino can no longer endure an existence without place.
Watch Now
Daily Recommendation:
THE CLOUD FOREST
(Bosque de niebla, Mónica Álvarez Franco, Mexico, 2016, 91 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Sometimes, ordinary people can create extraordinary positive change. In a small community in the Mexican tropics, sixteen families redesign their lives to create an entirely self-sustaining and independent society, hoping to save their sacred and fog-laden land. The Cloud Forest weaves this community’s singular quest with gorgeous scenes of their endangered surroundings.
Daily Recommendation:
QUEBRANTO
(Disrupted, Roberto Fiesco, México, 2013, 95 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Coral Bonelli was first known as “Pinolito,” a child actor in the 1970s Mexican film industry. The son of a mariachi and an actress, he grew up poor but a natural performer and was steered by his passionate stage mother, Lilia. After working in movies, “Pinolito” performed on the demanding cabaret circuit and then announced that he would become a woman. With her devoted, aging mother by her side, Coral deals with social prejudice and struggles to piece a living together.
African Diaspora International Film Festival Presents: ‘ADIFF Afro-Latino Film Series’
TANGO NEGRO: THE AFRICAN ROOTS OF TANGO
(Dom Pedro, France, 2013, 93 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
THE MALI-CUBA CONNECTION
(Richard Minier, France/Mali/Cuba, 2020, 81 min. In French and Spanish with English subtitles)
LA PLAYA D.C.
(Juan Andres Arango Garcia, Colombia/France/Brazil, 2012, 90 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
GOODBYE MOMO
(Leonardo Ricagni, Uruguay, 2003, 100 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
DENYING BRAZIL
(Joel Zito Araujo, Brazil, 2000, 92 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
MARIGHELLA
(Wagner Moura, Brazil, 2019, 155min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
‘Afro-Latino Music of South American’ Program:
SUSANA BACA (Mark Dixon, Peru/Belgium, 2003, 54 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
CANDOMBE (Rafael Eugenio, Uruguay, 1993, 16 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
‘Afro-Latino History’:
SONS OF BENKOS
(Lucas Silva, Colombia/France, 2003, 52 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
ESMERALDAS BEACH
(Patrice Raynal, Ecuador/ France, 2020, 58 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
ANGELICA
(Marisol Gómez-Mouakad, Puerto Rico, 2016, 100 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK DESCENDANTS
(Richard Salgado, Chile, 2017, 52 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
BLACK MEXICANS
(La Negrada, Jorge Perez Solano, Mexico, 2018, 104 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
EL MESTIZO
(Mario Handler, Venezuela, 1989, 82 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
KAFE NEGRO
(Mario Delatour, Haiti/Cuba, 2020, 52 min. In French and Spanish with English subtitles)
COUNCILWOMAN
(Margo Guernsey, USA, 2018, 52 min. In English)
Shorts Program:
INVISIBLE COLOR (Sergio Girl, USA, 2017, 47 min. In English and Spanish with English subtitles)
WHITE LIKE THE MOON (Marina Gonzalez Palmier, USA, 2001, 23 min. In English)
All films streaming from Friday, April 30 to Monday, May 3
Virtual Theatrical Release:
MY DARLING SUPERMARKET
(Meu Querido Supermercado, Tali Yankelevich, Brazil/Denmark, 2019, 80 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
Grocery store employees, today’s essential workers, get star treatment in My Darling Supermarket (made prior to the pandemic). Set within a bright, colorful supermercado in São Paulo, Brazil, this charming, funny documentary glides through a seemingly endless array of vibrantly designed shelves and displays, but it’s the store’s employees who take center stage. Rodrigo (in bread) discusses quantum physics and parallel universes; Santo (a forklift operator) builds video game cities; a security officer tracks possible shoplifters on closed circuit TVs (“Two suspects near the condensed milk!”); Ivan (a baker) likes to dress as Goku, a Manga character; and then there’s the artist who lovingly paints the prices. A panoply of individuals with fears, hopes, and questions about their place in the universe are celebrated in a quirky portrait that juxtaposes their idiosyncrasies with the assumed mundanity of bringing food to our table.
Daily Recommendation:
LOS HONGOS
(Óscar Ruiz Navia, Colombia/ France/Argentina/ Germany, 2014, 103 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Friends Ras and Calvin criss-cross the Colombian provincial city of Cali—birthplace of filmmaker Oscar Ruiz Navia—by skateboard and BMX looking for money to buy paint, an empty wall to fill, and something greater to be part of. Coming from totally different social backgrounds, but equally alienated from their parents, they share a striking friendship. They recognize kindred spirits in a YouTube film of the Arab Spring, which inspires them to provide a contribution to a collective piece with a group of local street artists. Hongos, ‘mushrooms’, the director calls them: they thrive on rotting matter. Just as in his debut Crab Trap, Ruiz Navia mixes documentary and fiction to capture the diffuse reality of his characters. Painting is never far away: some tableaux breathe the dreamy atmosphere of primitivism, for instance in scenes that portray the almost idyllic bond between Calvin and his grandmother.
Daily Recommendation:
XXY
(Lucía Puenzo, Argentina, 2007, 86 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
For just about everybody, adolescence means having to confront a number of choices and life decisions, but rarely any as monumental as the one facing 15 year-old Alex (Inés Efrón,) who was born an intersex child. As Alex begins to explore her sexuality, her mother invites friends from Buenos Aires to come for a visit at their house on the gorgeous Uruguayan shore, along with their 16-year-old son Álvaro (Martin Piroyanski.) Alex is immediately attracted to the young man, which adds yet another level of complexity to her personal search for identity, and forces both families to face their worst fears.
Daily Recommendation:
THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES
(El secreto de sus ojos, Juan José Campanella, Argentina/Spain, 2009, 129 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, the Argentine film by director Juan José Campanella tells the story of Benjamin (played by Ricardo Darín), a recently retired criminal court investigator who decides to write a novel based on a twenty-five year old unresolved rape and murder case, which still haunts him. Sharing his plans with Irene (Soledad Villamil), the beautiful judge and former colleague he has secretly been in love with for years, Benjamin’s initial involvement with the case is shown through flashbacks, as he sets out to identify the murderer. But Benjamin’s search for the truth will put him at the center of a judicial nightmare, as the mystery of the heinous crime continues to unfold in the present, testing the limits of a man seeking justice and personal fulfillment at last.