L’Latin America with its contradictions, its history, its changing landscapes and the struggle for more dignified economic survival. This is the continent shown through the new Cinelatino film cycle, a review that begins at Exterior Night the 7 Septemberee continues all‘Auditorium in Piazza della Libertà on 8 and 9 September.
Five events that close the summer festival of outdoor cinema and open the autumn season of the Auditorium, offering quality productions that explore the geography and social contradictions of South America. Five unreleased films, coming from Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexicomake up this year’s program, promoted by TenarisDalmineorganized by Dalmine Foundation and Fundación Proa, in collaboration with Lab 80 film and Bergamo Film Meeting.
Stories that mix personal events, the present and the historical past, cultural and social elements of areas distant to us both from a geographical and cultural point of view.
Starting from the contradictions, including political ones, of Colombia, narrating in El árbol rojo, the first work by Colombian director Joan Gómez Endara, scheduled at Fuori Notte on Wednesday 7 September (9 pm). An example of the new Latin American cinema, it is a road movie that, from the north of Colombia to Bogotà, goes through the country’s difficulties and contradictions. Set in 1999, during the peace talks between the government of Andrés Pastrana Arango and the Farc rebels, it tells the newspaper of a dismembered family and, between professional and non-professional actors, shows a realistic and sometimes sinister space in which the protagonists move to self-discovery. Dismembered families that are, unfortunately, a common trait of Latin America and in particular of Mexico shown in La caja (by Lorenzo Vigas), screened in the Auditorium in Piazza della Libertà on Thursday 8 September (8.30 pm). A teenager from Mexico City on a journey to retrieve his father’s remains, accidentally meets a man resembling his parent: an encounter that fills him with doubts. Presented in competition in Venice last year, it is a film about the identity and study of the father figure in Latin America, to which the Venezuelan director has dedicated a trilogy of which the proposed film is an ideal conclusion. A reflection that leads to a cruel reality, a reason for the disappearance of many people, and to a phenomenon that substitutes the figure of the absent father for that of the charismatic leader, connected to Chavismo or Peronism.
Also on Thursday 8, at 22.15 in the Auditorium, El gran movimiento by Kiro Russo will be presented. The Bolivian director, between almost documentary realism and visionary components, brings to the screen a particular point of view on the city of La Paz, on the marginal lives of his invisibles, hidden between the outskirts of the city and the countryside. The story of a worker, of his illness, of nightmare and redemption, within a visual symphony of the city at altitude.
Argentina and Costa Rica are the protagonists on Friday 9 September, also in the Auditorium. At 8.30 pm the protagonist is Jesús López by the Argentine director Maximiliano Schonfeld. Inspired by a true story lived by the director at a young age, it shows the process of accepting a bereavement in a teenager, in the spaces of rural Argentina. At 10.15 pm the intimate relationship between man and nature by Clara Sola, by Costa Rican-Swedish director Nathalie Álvarez Mesén, is presented. Clara, a 40-year-old Costa Rican, has a special connection with God. As a healer, she cares for a family and a village in need of hope, while she finds solace in the relationship with the natural world, until she is attracted to the new. granddaughter’s boyfriend. An awakening of impulses that becomes the rediscovery of oneself and one’s femininity.
Identities that mix, conversions that collide with reality. Representations of lives without prejudice, which move in large spaces, between urban environments and changing landscapes of the villages. Cinelatino, thanks to his proposals, is for the viewer a fascinating journey, where the narration and the style of the cinematographic language are completed in the context of a profound Latin America, a land of social and anthropological changes.
PROGRAM
OUTSIDE NIGHT
Wednesday 7 September at 9 pm
El árbol rojo
by Joan Gómez Endara – Colombia, Panama, France 2021 – 90 ‘
with Carlos Vergara, Shaday Velasquez, Jhoyner Salgado
When his father dies, Eliécer is forced to take care of a little half-sister he has never met before, Esperanza. Her task is to accompany her to the capital in search of her mother who abandoned her as a child. The decision not to take any responsibility and the fulfillment of his duty oblige him to embark on a journey in which he accepts the company of Toño, a young boatman with the dream of becoming a boxing champion.
PIAZZA LIBERTÀ AUDITORIUM
Thursday 8 September at 8.30 pm
The caja
by Lorenzo Vigas – Mexico, USA 2021 – 92 ‘
with Hernán Mendoza, Hatzín Navarrete, Elián González, Cristina Zulueta, Dulce Alexa Alfaro, Graciela Beltrán
Hatzin, a teenager from Mexico City, is on a journey to retrieve his father’s remains, found in a mass grave in the vast skies and empty landscapes of northern Mexico. But the chance encounter with a man physically resembling his father fills him with doubts and hopes as to where he really ended up. Hatzin gradually discovers a cruel reality, the reasons for the disappearance of so many people. He quickly becomes a man, he knows the true nature of people, even those who apparently would like to help him.
at 22.15
El gran movimiento
by Kiro Russo – Bolivia, Qatar, France, Switzerland, United Kingdom 2021
with Julio César Ticona, Max Eduardo Bautista Uchasara, Francisca Arce de Aro, Israel Hurtado, Gustavo Milán Ticona
A symphony of the city in altitude, the illness of a worker, the nightmare and its redemption.
“La Paz is the least western capital of America. Located at over 3600 meters above sea level, the city stretches out like a sea of bricks, stones and concrete in the canyons that precede the plateau. I wanted to make a film about La Paz with characters who could provide a particular point of view on the city. I found these characters in Elder, a young miner, and in Max, a homeless man, whose unusual positions in society gave me the opportunity to observe the city as a whole and to see its systems, architecture and changes. Freely inspired by their lives, I created this story of disease and treatment that takes us to the heart of the social fabric of the city, revealing the lives of the invisible “. (Kiro Russo)
PIAZZA LIBERTÀ AUDITORIUM
Friday 9 September at 8.30 pm
Jesús López
by Maximiliano Schonfeld – Argentina, France 2021 – 87 ‘
with Lucas Schell, Joaquín Spahn, Sofía Palomino, Ia Arteta, Alfredo Zenobi, Paula Ransenberg
Jesús López, a young racing driver, accidentally dies. His cousin Abel, a teenager adrift, gradually takes his place in the bosom of his family and friends, until he is possessed by the spirit of his cousin. Is Jesús López a great movie? A biblical film? A film about mourning? A coming-of-age story? Its success is certainly in the ability to reconcile many cinematographic genres, to fit them on an aesthetic and narrative level. One of the best films about youth living in the provinces and the desire to flee elsewhere.
at 22.15
Clara Sola
by Nathalie Álvarez Mesén – Costa Rica, Sweden, Belgium, Germany 2021 – 106 ‘
with Wendy Chinchilla Araya, Daniel Castañeda Rincón, Ana Julia Porras Espinoza, Flor María Vargas Chaves
Clara, a 40-year-old Costa Rican, has a special connection with God. As a healer, she cares for a family and a village in need of hope, while she finds solace in the relationship with the natural world. After years of being controlled by her mother’s repressive attention, Clara suddenly feels attraction to her granddaughter’s new boyfriend. The awakening of her impulses takes her into uncharted territory, allowing her to cross her own physical and spiritual limits. Drawing strength from self-discovery, Clara gradually frees herself from the role of “saint” and begins to heal only herself.
INFORMATION
Full admission: € 6.50
Reduced: € 5.50
Lab 80 members: € 4.50 – 5-entry booklet reserved for members: € 18
For TenarisDalmine employees with badges, free admission to all screenings for two people
Exterior Night Courtyard of the Caversazzi library, via Tasso, Bergamo
Piazza della Libertà Auditorium, Bergamo
CONTACTS
Dalmine Foundation | 035 5603418 – www.lab80.it
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