Neighboring Scenes at Film at Lincoln Center presented with Cinema Tropical is one of New York City’s most important Latin film festivals.
Full schedule and tickets $15 at Filmlinc.org
5th Neighboring Scenes: New Latin American Cinema
The 5th Neighboring Scenes film festival is at Film at Lincoln Center over President’s Day Weekend from Friday-Tuesday, February 14-18, 2020.
Art reflects the times. You can recognize the health or sickness of a country through it’s art. For example, a country in which most movies are about guns and fighting is drunk on violence and likely suffers from random shootings.
[Editor: As a gringo living and working in the Latin world, I have learned that my own education and cultural programming, made me blind. Seeing the world through another’s eyes is a wonderful way to see.]
Neighboring Scenes not only presents great films and filmmakers, it provides an interesting window into the health of our neighbors in the Americas, and our own relationship with each other.
The opening night film is Joanna Reposi Garibaldi’s documentary “Lemebel” which provides an up-close and personal portrait of Chilean writer and artist Pedro Lemebel.
Pablo Larraín, the Chilean Academy-Award nominated director (“No” (2012) and “Jackie” (2016)) and producer of Sebastían Lelio’s Academy Award-winning “A Fantastic Woman,” brings Gael García Bernal (Mexico) and Mariana Di Girolamo (Chile) together as an artistic couple who have adopted a child.
[Editor’s Note: Facebook probably won’t let us promote this film festival because they’ve been giving us a hard time on anything with LGBT themes. Come on Facebook, this is Lincoln Center which, with Kennedy Center in Washington, is either the first or second most important performing arts center in the United States. Remember Facebook that the U.S. Supreme Court has validated LGBT marriage in the United States.]
Films
Getting your film screened at Lincoln Center is a major step in any young filmmaker’s career. As always at Film at Lincoln Center, many filmmakers will be present. We hope New York City’s Latin community will support these artists. One of them may go on to industry fame.
Lemebel
The opening night film is Joanna Reposi Garibaldi’s 2019 Chilean documentary about Pedro Lemebel and LGBT writer and activist during Pinochet’s dictatorship in the 1980s.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
Friday, February 14, 2020 at 6:30pm
Francesca Beale Theater
Q&A with the director
Opening night reception following (these are great opportunities to meet film heavyweights)
Sun Inside (Um filme de verão)
Jo Serfaty’s 2019 debut feature from Brazil follows four teenagers from the Rio favelas (barrios or slums) who try to rise above it all by reinventing themselves during summer break from high school.
In Portuguese with English subtitles.
Friday, February 14, 2020 at 9pm
Francesca Beale Theater
Opening night reception following (these are great opportunities to meet film heavyweights)
Compañía
Miguel Hilari’s 2019 Bolivian documentary follows an Indigenous Andean community who have migrated to the city, but returned to their ancestral village for a festival of the dead. It’s a prize winner from the Visions du Réel documentary film festival in Nyon. It is Switzerland’s largest documentary film festival.
In Spanish and Aymara with English subtitles.
Many of us live with this theme because we are from somewhere else. How do you deal with births, marriages, deaths and memories when you are pursuing your dreams a million miles away from home?
Saturday, February 15, 2020 at 2pm
Francesca Beale Theater
Let It Burn (Diz a Ela que me Via Chorar)
Maíra Bühler’s 2019 Brazilian documentary is a portrait of the marginalized residents of a São Paulo hostel as they struggle to survive one day at a time.
In Portuguese with English subtitles.
Saturday, February 15, 2020 at 4pm
Francesca Beale Theater
The Sharks (Los Tiburones)
Lucía Garibaldi’s 2019 Uruguayan debut feature about a teenager in a beach town who becomes infatuated with an older boy. Newcomer Romina Bentancur is one of those natural actresses who can say everything with one look.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
Saturday, February 15, 2020 at 6pm
Francesca Beale Theater
Q&A with the director
Workforce (Mano de obra)
David Zonana’s 2019 Mexican feature tells the story of how a family deals with trying to get compensation for a death at a construction site.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
Saturday, February 15, 2020 at 8:30pm
Francesca Beale Theater
Q&A with the director
Prince of Peace (Príncipe de paz)
Clemente Castor’s Mexican debut feature follows the daily routines of a group of Mexican teenagers.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
Sunday, February 16, 2020 at 2pm
Francesca Beale Theater
Pirotecnia
Federico Atehortúa Arteaga’s 2019 Colombian explores the director’s own family connections between his mother, Colombian cinema and Colombia’s seemingly endless civil war.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
Sunday, February 16, 2020
Francesca Beale Theater
Private Fiction (Ficción privada)
Andrés Di Tella’s 2019 Argentine documentary tells his own family’s story, the love story of his Argentine father and East Indian mother, with the help of his own daughter. Family is so central to Latin culture and many of us have families like this. What an interesting way of telling your children who they are.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
Sunday, February 16, 2020 at 6:15pm
Francesca Beale Theater
Q&A with the director
Ema
The New York premiere of Pablo Larraín’s 2019 feature about a dancing couple who have abandoned their adopted child to pursue their art. Mariana Di Girolamo and Gael García Bernal star. This is a Music Box film.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
Sunday, February 16, 2020 at 8:30pm
Francesca Beale Theater
Death Will Come and Shall Have Your Eyes (Vendrá la muerte y tendrá tus ojos)
José Luis Torres Leiva’s 2019 Chilean feature about a couple dealing with one’s terminal illness. How do you deal with the hardest thing that everyone has to deal with, but nobody can tell you how?
In Spanish with English subtitles.
Monday, February 17, 2020 at 6:30pm
Francesca Beale Theater
Again Once Again (De nuevo otra vez)
Argentine novelist, actor and playwright Romina Paula’s 2019 debut docudrama explores themes of motherhood in Buenos Aires with her real mother and young son.
In Spanish and German with English subtitles.
Monday, February 17, 2020 at 9pm
Francesca Beale Theater
Waiting for the Carnival (Estou me guardando para quando o carnaval chegar)
Marcelo Gomes’ 2019 Brazilian documentary about a village that tirelessly produces jeans all year long, only escaping during Carnival. The more things change, the more things stay the same.
In Portuguese with English subtitles.
Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 6:30pm
Francesca Beale Theater
In the Middle of the Labyrinth (En medio del laberinto)
Salomón Pérez’ 2019 Peruvian debut feature is a coming of age love story about a skater and an artist in Trujillo, Peru. Wasn’t it great to be young?
Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 9pm
Francesca Beale Theater
Full schedule and tickets $15 at Filmlinc.org
Neighboring Scenes
The festival took the baton from the Latinbeat film festival produced by Film Society’s Spanish-Puerto Rican program director Richard Peña who retired in 2012 after 25 years. Neighboring Scenes with Cinema Tropical, one of New York City’s leading Hispanic film presenters, keeps getting stronger.
Cinema Tropical’s programmers are Carlos Gutiérrez and Cecilia Barrionuevo.