April-June 2002

VIDEOTECA DEL SUR in NEW YORK
PROGRAM
APRIL – JUNE 2002

DCTV | 87 Lafayette St. 
Two blocks South from Canal St. ( corner White St.) Train N, R, or #6 to Canal St. in Manhattan

 Notes from the Director 

Continuing with the work began thirteen years ago, the Videoteca del Sur has started the season of  2002 with exciting news: as of  December 14, 2001, the Videoteca del Sur in the city of Havana has been inaugurated as the first Latin American cinema-videoteca on the island. This initiative was carried out thanks to the joint work with the Cuban Cinema Institute (ICAIC) and the National Federation of Cinema Clubs of Cuba. Videoteca del Sur in Havana has its exhibitions every Wednesday. Once the weekly program is finished, a stimulating debate ensues, including diatribe and critiques from Cuban directors and intellectuals who are present. It has been a pleasure to feel the warm acceptance by the Cuban people and their attendance to said functions.
In addition, I am in charge of the design and programming of the Havana Film Festival New York, 2002. The strength and knowledge I have garnered from working as Director and Programmer of the Videoteca del Sur has allowed me to handle the stresses and nuances of putting together this film festival.
In the upcoming semester of Videoteca del Sur, we have included some of the works screened at this year’s festival, knowing that everyday life does not always allot for time to attend each of the films during an expansive festival, such as the HFFNY 2002.
Our goal at Videoteca del Sur is to offer works in which we, as Latin Americans, are not only reflected, but through which we have learned to reinvent ourselves in our cultural roots. The small, yet infinite space of Latin American Cinema belongs to all of you.

Pedro Zurita
Executive Director

WEDNESDAY, April 24    4:00pm
PANEL: Esthetic Impact of Digitalization on Non Budget Filmmaking

Outstanding filmmakers Eliseo Subiela, Humberto Solas and Fabian Hofman participate in a panel on the esthetic impact of digitalization on ‘non’ budget filmmaking.  This panel seeks to address what extent will the use of the digital video camera influence new cinematography and artistic expressions in this century.  Works from panelist will be screened.
In addition, this event is proud to be the venue of the official launch of a new festival created by Humberto Solas, the First International Non Budget Film Festival to be held in November 6-10, 2002., in Gibara, Cuba,
Panelists: Fabian Hoffman, Eliseo Subiela, Humberto Solas.
Moderator: Edin Vélez
*This program will be live broadcast on www.dctvny.org

FRIDAY, April 26   7:00PM
VICTOR JARA, EL DERECHO DE VIVIR EN PAZ
Dir. Carmen Luz Parot   CHILE   100’

 This documentary explores Chilean folk singer Victor Jara’s life.  His beginnings and his peasant childhood, his youth at a marginal neighborhood in Santiago, his theater work, and his music career and his commitment with the political left, which gains the government in 1970 with Salvador Allende.  Finally, the tragic end: Allende dies, Jara is tortured in the Chilean Stadium, a sport center used to hold political prisoners in September of 1973, and Jara is killed.  Like so many others, his widow, Joan Turner, must leave the country and from abroad starts an arduous battle to get back Jara’s works, which have been destroyed and forbidden in the country. Prized at Havana Film Festival, Cuba.
The Director will be present. 
*This program will be live broadcast on www.dctvny.org

FRIDAY, May 3 7:30PM

CUANDO LO PEQUEÑO SE HACE GRANDE
Dir.: Mariem Pérez Riera    PUERTO RICO   25’

 Since the death of David Sanes on  April 19, 1999, Puerto Ricans have moved to the Vieques Camp to protest against the US Navy drills in this island. This is the story of civil disobedience by the people of Vieques. Prized at Havana Film Festival, Cuba.

VIDEO DE FAMILIA (FAMILY VIDEO) 

Dir.: Humberto Padrón   CUBA   47’
Cast: Enrique Molina, Verónica Lynn, Heron Vega, Yipsia Torres y Elsa Camp 

 The family has agreed to send a video-letter to Raulito, who has lived in the United States for about 4 years. Everything goes well until the sister reveals a secret: Raulito is gay. Nobody understands how this has happened and they try to find an explanation. However, the father takes advantage of the moment to express his bitterness towards him for leaving Cuba.  Prized at Havana Film Festival, Cuba. The Director will be present.
*This program will be live broadcast on www.dctvny.org

FRIDAY, May 10 7:30PM 

ALEGRÍA DE UNA VEZ

Dir.:  Mateo Herrera   ECUADOR   75’
Cast: Juan Francisco Racines, Julia Silva, José Espinoza, Xavier Ogaz,  Konrad Hellwin, Jean Paul Racines, Martín Chang. Plowsky, Filippo Burbano, Xavier Andrade. 

 Among the viewers of a concert, a bunch of youngsters run in a circle all in the same direction, dancing on the same edge.  They are young people from Quito, teenagers on the boundaries of society.  They live as if they were dancing in a slam, unaware of the rest of the world.  In the middle of the concert goers stands a young, innocent rebel: Carlos. In the endless conversations with his friends he talks about two things: Music and women. But to speak about women is not the same as having one and that is what Carlos realizes when he meets Alegria, a mysterious, loving but malicious girl. 

FRIDAY, May 17 7:30PM 

Y SI TE VI NO ME ACUERDO 

Dir.: Miguel Barreda   PERU   90’
Cast: Miguel Iza, Matthias Dittmer, Marisol Palacios, Delfina Paredes, Gilberto Torres, Ismael Contreras, Óscar Carrillo, Helena Huambos, Víctor Ángeles. 

 A Peruvian man returns to his homeland after living for many years in Europe. He returns to collect his inheritance and begin a new life in his native Peru. A woman abruptly flees from her stepparent’s home in Peru, where  life has never been a happy one, en route to relocate in Buenos Aires. A German reporter rescues an ancient Inca mummy and plans to return it to where it belongs, the peak of a mountain.  A man searching for his past, a woman searching for her future and a man with a rather absurd, albeit altruistic, goal, cross paths on a Pan-American roadway.

FRIDAY, May 24 7:30PM 

LOS NIÑOS INVISIBLES 

Dir.: Lisandro Duque    COLOMBIA   90’ 
Cast: Guillermo Castañeda, Juvenal Camacho, Gustavo Angarita, Ingrid Cielo Ospina. 

 Rafael, a 7-year-old boy,  loves Martha Cecilia. To see her closely without her knowledge, he embarks in the adventure of becoming invisible by following the instructions of a black magic pamphlet. At the same time he tests the recklessness of the pamphlet with a scapular of the Virgin Del Carmen. Rafael decides to try his invisibility and discovers that, in fact, he is invisible to others.  But mainly, to Martha Cecilia.  An infantile adventure occurring in a Colombian town around the fifties.

FRIDAY, May 31 7:30PM

POLVO DE ESTRELLAS
Dir.: Hilda Hidalgo   COSTA RICA   44’

 From the high marble mountain of Carrara in Italy to the mysterious Osa Peninsula the documentary trace the spiritual journey of Costa Rican sculptor Jorge Jimenez Deredia. His work stands out and for the first time in history, Latin American art is to be included in Saint Peter Basilica in Rome.

MANUELA 
Dir.: Humberto Solás   CUBA    42’
Cast: Adela Legrá, Adolfo Llauradó 

 First short films made by Solás, Cuba’s great director, based on Manuela’s story, a young peasant woman, whose mother dies in a military house search. Homeless and desesperate, circumstances bring her to join a guerrilla group. There she meets Mejicano, a young fighter, whith whom she starts a deep affective relationship, but destinity frustrates her future aspirations.In Spanish. 

FRIDAY, June 7 7:30PM

EL LADO OSCURO DEL CORAZON 2 (THE DARK SIDE OF THE HEART 2) 

Dir.:  Eliseo Subiela   ARGENTINA    108’
Cast:  Dario Grandinetti, Ariadna Gil, Sandra Ballesteros, Nacha Guevara, Manuel Bandera, Santiago Ramos, Pepe Novoa, Carolina Peleritti.

 10 years have past and Oliverio is still searching for a woman who could fly.  He has lost some of his hair but none of his bad habits. He is still asking poetry about his muse and his ideal woman. He thinks Miranda, “the eel” is the one. She proposes him to live together and to find a stable work. Oliverio escapes. He realizes that the only woman he could have flown with was Ana, the woman he had met 10 years before. Oliverio goes to Barcelona. Ana has begun a new life, leaving behind her days of prostitution. She has a house, lives with her 20 year-old daughter and works at a department store.  Oliverio and Ana realize that the past is the past. Oliverio then meets Alejandra, a circus artist who is just getting ready for the act of flying… 

FRIDAY, June 14 7:30PM

ORIENTACIONES SON ORIENTACIONES  (DIRECTIVES ARE DIRECTIVES)

Dir.: José Luis Rodriguez &Edgar Soberón   EICTV-CUBA   22’

 Testimony of the Gabriel García Márquez passion for the films and his joined in the creation of the International Film & Television School.  At the same time report a real story happened between him and a doorman from the school. In Spanish.

ONE DOLLAR 

Dir.: Héctor Herrera   PANAMA   60’

 Visit Panama. For one dollar you can buy a gram of cocaine, a dose of crack or even try the new toxic substance “El Pegón,” a mixture of marihuana, battery acid, oil and other chemical components. Ten years after the so-called “Just Cause” military operation, literally tons of weapons are in the hands of the civilian population of Panama. This documentary illustrates the daily violence of life in the Panamanian ghettos.

FRIDAY, June 21 7:30PM

DOMÉSTICAS (MAIDS)

Dir.: Nando Olival & Fernando Meirelles   BRAZIL   90’
Cast: Claudia Missura, Graziella Moretto, Lena Roque, Olivia Araujo, Renta Melo, Robson Nenes, Tiago Moraes.

 There is another country in Brazil. The “invisible” country of maids. If this invisible Brazil disappears, Brazilians could be alone with a huge, but “visible” mess. A comedy like Maids is not a film about maids but the film of them. It is the history of Cida, Roxanne, Quiteria, Raimunda and Creo. They all have a different idea of paradise, but they all share the idea of the hell: being a maid. The movie intertwines histories and characters from their respective point of view: maids, drivers, small criminals, flower delivery boys, motorcycle messengers, etc.

FRIDAY, June 28 7:30PM

PACHITO REX, ME VOY PERO NO DEL TODO

Dir.: Fabián Hofman   MEXICO   86’
Cast: Jorge Zárate, Ana Ofelia Murguía, Gómez Cruz, Fernando Torre Lapham, Pedro Altamirano, Damián Alcázar, Lisa Owen, Arturo Ríos.

 The various stories that compose Pachito Rex reflect the assassination of a controversial singer who is the favorite candidate to win the presidential election of an imaginary Latin-American country. The stories of the alleged assassin, of a policeman in charge of the investigation, and of an architect contracted to design a mausoleum, become entwined and twisted, offering a vision about idols, democracy and the repercussion of these events on everyday life. 

NEXT PROGRAM: SEPTEMBER 6th

Videoteca del Sur’s 13th Anniversary