The 6th Neighboring Scenes: New Latin American Cinema 2021 film festival is virtual at filmlinc.org Wednesday, March 31 – April 12, 2021. $12 or $80 for an All-Access Pass.
This year’s festival brings the stories of women, Indigenous, African and LGBTQ Latin Americans to center stage.
Neighboring Scenes is one of New York’s most important Latin film festivals. It features both established and new filmmakers with both festival winners and some great finds from underrepresented countries. You can watch films here that you can’t see anywhere else in New York.
Films are available in the United States. Free talks are available worldwide.
The festival is co-produced by Cinema Tropical and Film at Lincoln Center. Film at Lincoln Center is one of NYC’s leading film presenters. Cinema Tropical is one of the leading presenters of Latin American and Latino film in the United States.
Congratulations to Carlos Gutiérrez and the entire Cinema Tropical team on reaching your 20th Anniversary. We are certain the best is yet to come.
Filmmaker Talks
Bringing filmmakers and future filmmakers together is one of the important reasons for going to a film festival. Every film in the festival features pre-recorded Q&As, and there are two talks this year.
Wednesday, March 31, 2021 at 6pm ET ~ “All the Dead One’s” directors Marco Dutra 🇧🇷 (Good Manners) and Caetano Gotardo 🇧🇷 (The Moving Creatures) talk about their female-focused period drama and how racism continues to devil us even when it should be left in the past.
Tuesday, April 6, 2021 at 6pm ET ~ Argentine director Martín Rejtman 🇦🇷 discusses his classic comedy “Silvia Prieto.”
These are great choices because both Argentina and Brazil have small but vibrant film communities.
Neighboring Scenes 2021 Films
All the Dead Ones 🇧🇷 (2020) by Marco Dutra and Caetano Gotardo shows how ending slavery didn’t end racism in this story of two women – one Black and one White. In Brazilian Portuguese with English subtitles. Don’t miss the March 31 talk with the directors.
This story has special relevance because Brazil has the second largest Black population after Nigeria. Racism persists even with a Black majority. The government claims racism doesn’t exist, so if you complain, you get in trouble with the government. But racism persists and brings us all down. Obviously we have similar problems in the United States.
Between Dog and Wolf 🇨🇺 (2020) by Irene Gutiérrez considers revolutionary faith in the story of three Cuban soldiers who fought in Angola and now spend their time reenacting past battles in Cuba. In Spanish with English subtitles.
Chaco 🇧🇴 (2020) by Diego Mondaca expresses the futility of war in this story of the Chaco War (1932-35) between Bolivia and Paraguay. In Aymara, Quechua and Spanish with English subtitles.
The Howls 🇲🇽 (2020) by Julio Hernández Cordón is a family tale about searching for your past in the history and legends of Texcoco, a town on the outskirts of Mexico City where Cordón grew up. In Spanish with English subtitles.
Night Shot 🇨🇱 (2020) by Carolina Moscosco tells the complex story of rape from the very personal point of view of the person who was raped. In Spanish with English subtitles.
One in a Thousand 🇦🇷 (2020) by Clarisa Navas is an LGBTQ coming of age story in which a teenager falls in love with an older woman and has to confront the hostility associated with that in order to have her first love. In Spanish with English subtitles.
Like much of the world, Latin America is very LGBTQ conflicted. We have vibrant LGBTQ communities, but our cultures are very machista (male chauvinist) and against it. There are clearly unresolved issues here. The only way to move past that is to talk honestly about it.
Panquiaco 🇵🇦 (2020) by Ana Elena Tejera is a story about how migration affects people and their families. In Portuguese and Dulegaya (an Indigenous Chibchan language of the Kuna people of Panama’s Darién Province) with English subtitles.
You can go back home, but it’s not the same as it was and neither are you. We end up in between, alienated exiles from both places. Every immigration experiences this when you go home or your family visits you in your new country.
Panama’s Darién Province is an interesting place. It’s the deep jungle of southern Panama and northern Colombia. There are no roads. The TransAmerica Highway skips past it. Yet migrants make the crossing. It’s a special place.
Samichay 🇵🇪 (2020) by Mauricio Franco Tosso is a story of the struggles of an Indigenous family in the Peruvian Andes. Samichay is the cow that Celestino relies on for money and hope. In Quechua and Spanish with English subtitles.
In the U.S. we are more familiar with the struggles of our Black communities. South of the border, Indigenous communities experience pretty much the same thing.
Silvia Prieto 🇦🇷 (1999) by Martín Rejtman is a comedy about the general anxiety of an Argentine woman in Buenos Aires.
If you know Argentine women, you will laugh out loud. A certain level of anxiety is part of the national culture. This film also provides a look at Buenos Aires before things went bad in the Argentine crisis of 2001.
Los Fantasmas 🇬🇹 (2020) by Sebastián Lojo is the story of Koki, a young man who makes his living by attracting men to a hotel where the owner robs them. When the owner turns on Koki, he is forced to face the impact of his own actions from the other side.
Neighboring Scenes 2021 shows Latin America in all its pain and glory. This is not Hollywood. This is real life.
Get tickets at filmlinc.org