Movies from 9 countries (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela)
17 Award winning films
First time films from Ecuador are being screened in Chennai
Colombian film, The Wind Journeys, is a Cannes entry, 2009
The Peruvian films Undertow and The Bad Intentions are Oscar Entries for 83rd and 85th Academy Awards
Brazilian film The Trespasser is winner of 27 Awards
Argentine film Chinese Take Out is winner of 11 Awards and 18 Nominations
Distinguished Guests attending Inaugural Function
1. His Excellency Mr. Augusto Montiel
Hon’ble Ambassador Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, New Delhi
2. Mr. Eduardo Martinez Curiel
Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of Mexico in India, New Delhi
3. Ms. Suhasini Maniratnam
Hony. Consul, Consulate of Luxemburg, Chennai
Movies to be screened
1. Relentless/Implacable/2014 /72min/col/Mexico/ Directed by Carlos García Campillo (18/04/2016 | 6.30 P.M)
Max is a teenager who imagines himself as an implacable ladies man who can get any girl he wants. His life will take a 180º turn when he takes Dan, a smart, athletic and handsome twenty-something, under his wing and teaches him everything he knows. None of them imagined that this would make them compete for the affection of the same girl.
Alma and Samuel have never left the mountains where they were born. In search of a cure for infertility, the couple travels to meet an eccentric healer visiting from Spain who discovers Samuel has the gift of healing. Despite his resistance to believe this, Samuel’s life is inexorably changed. A proponent of the Venezuelan “Atom Cinema” manifesto, this stunningly beautiful portrait of life in the mountains is based on the ideas of Edgar Cayce, who investigated hypnosis as a form of diagnosing and curing illnesses.
Awards : 1 nomination
3. The Gun/La Gunguna /2015/87min/col/Republica Dominica/Directed by Ernesto Alemany(19/04/2016 | 5.00 P.M)
The stories behind a .22 caliber pistol that brings bad luck and misfortune to any person that takes possession of it.A tale of a small .22 caliber gun with a heavy history behind it, “La Gunguna” tours the caribbean underground leaving a trace of bad luck and unfortunate events, marked with tones of black humor. A parade of bizarre characters – lowlifes, loan sharks, gun traffickers, professional pool and domino players, corrupt military men – moved by vengeance and deception, weaved together in episodes of tension, violence, even reflexion, in an ironic and picturesque society where “La Gunguna” becomes a bad omen, showing how curses are sometimes disguised under a shiny coat of gold.
4. The Trespasser/O Invasor/ 2002/97min/col/Portuguese/Brazil/ Directed by Beto Brant (19/04/2016 | 6.30 P.M)
Two businessmen, Ivan and Gilberto, have their partner killed by a hitman who then blackmails them to gain control of their company. Ivan and Gilberto, part of the upper class, are dismayed at the entry of the hitman’s ghetto behavior and attitudes into their privileged sphere. Additionally, the hitman, in search of further riches, seduces the wealthy daughter of the partner he killed.
Renato has a short time to live and decides to teach his granddaughter the importance of the simple things in life. Renato knows his time is running out, meanwhile he teaches his six-year-old granddaughter the importance of the small things in life, the value of friendship and the respect towards other people’s views. Renato has three children; Montserrat, his divorced and self-conscious daughter, who lovingly but firmly takes care of him. Anita who’s pregnant but has a failing marriage. And Salvador the son who suffered the most with the loss of their mother. The daughters have decided to send him to a hospital against his will. But he has other plans. With the help of his granddaughter Carlota, he plans to escape and sail from Venezuela to Salvador de Bahia in Brazil, as he once promised to his deceased wife. Two days in the life of a UPSIDE DOWN family.
6. Aquí me quedo/2010/70min/Guatemala../Director: Rodolfo Espinosa (20/04/2016 | 5.00 P.M)
“Paco” is a quiet man who travels from Cuyotenango to Quetzaltenango to sort out their ideas with the help of the one person he trusts: his uncle Juancho, buried in the cemetery. While he is explaining his motives to his wife , he crosses Willy (Andres Zea), a psychotic Quetzalteco who points a gun and who is willing to kill Paco,. Paco tries to find a way to escape while Willy seeks the courage to pull the trigger.
7. The Wind Journeys /Los Viajes del Viento /2009/117min/col/Colombia/ Directed by Ciro Guerra (20/04/2016 | 6.15 P.M)
A musician travels a great distance to return an instrument to his elderly teacher. For most of his life, Ignacio Carrillo traveled the villages of northern Colombia, playing traditional songs on his accordion, a legendary instrument said to have once belonged to the devil. He eventually married and settled in a small town, leaving the nomadic life behind. But after the traumatic death of his wife, he vows to never play the accursed accordion again, and embarks on one last journey to return the instrument to its rightful owner. On the way, Ignacio is followed by FermÃn, a spirited teenager determined to become his apprentice. Tired of loneliness, Ignacio accepts the young man as his pupil and together they traverse the vast Colombian terrain, discovering the musical diversity of Caribbean culture. Hardened by a life of solitude, Ignacio tries to discourage FermÃn from following in his footsteps, but destiny has different plans for them.
Awards: 7 wins & 1 nomination /Cannes Film Festival 2009—Won—Award of the City of Rome
8. Behind You/A tus Espaldas/2011/76min/col/Ecuador/ Directed by Tito Jara H. (20/04/2016 | 7.45 P.M)
The statue of the Virgin that crowns “The Panecillo” looks and smiles to the north of the city, home to wealthier people, in the south, where most of its inhabitants are the most poor, they only see her back. “Behind Your Back” is the story of Jorge Chicaiza Cisneros (Jordi), a young man working at a bank in Quito and whose main concern in life is to forget and hide his humble origins in the poor neighborhoods of the south city and his mestizo racial reality. His economic capacity, as a son of a migrant mother allows, him to change his name to Jordi Lamotta Cisneros, likewise change his home residence and activities. He likes wearing designer clothes, partying and spends all his moderate salary to car tuning. All this in order to impress the middle class of the northern part of the city and gain their acceptance, yet he knows he will never become part of the high social circles because as a mestizo. Jordi meets Greta by coincidence, a Colombian girl who has come to Ecuador to make a living, and later her corruptive best friend Yahaira. Greta has a secret affair with the nephew of the owner of the same bank where Jordi works, Luis Alberto Granada de la Roca, an ordinary marketing engineer which hides a series of dirty deals behind the work assigned by his uncle. Jordi, Greta, Yahaira, Luis Alberto, a strange lawyer, The Progressive Bank and the Virgin of The Panecillo, casually intertwine their lives in search of money, power and acceptance; in the process, they’ll discover hidden realities and other accepted with resignation by Ecuadorian society
Twenty years ago, as Guatemala’s civil war was at its worst, Las Cruces was a humble farmers’ village at the base of a beautiful volcano in the country’s wilderness. Set ablaze, and its people brutally murdered, Las Cruces was destroyed by elite government troops. The truth behind the crime, it would seem, is a story of extreme heroism paralleled with deceit… an incredible tale of war and death unknown to all but to those who were there and lived through it. In this film, two of the survivors shed light on the horror that took place that fateful night.
Awards : 1 Nomination
10. The Bad Intentions /Las Malas Intenciones/(2011)/col/110min/Peru/Directed by Rosario García-Montero (21/04/2016 | 5.30 P.M)
Las Malas Intenciones, tells the story of a period in the life of Cayetana, an eight years old girl growing up in Peru in the early 80’s, when terrorist violence was starting to agitate the country. The story unfolds from the point of view of this intelligent child, but with a somewhat dark and distorted personality. Daughter of separated parents, Cayetana spends most of the time on her own and under the care of their employees. After returning from a long trip, the mother, Agnes, gives her some unexpected news: she is pregnant. With this news Cayetana’s fragile world collapses. She locks herself in her room and solemnly declares that the day of birth of her brother will be the day of her own death. Only your imagination and the emergence of the national heroes of their textbooks – Olaya, Grau, Bolognesi – may save her from an increasingly alienated family environment in a country about to collapse.
Awards : 6 wins & 8 nominations /Peruvian entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 85th Academy Awards,
11. Gabo, The Magic of Reality / Gabo: The Creation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez /docu/(2015)/Colombia/90min/col/Directed by Justin Webster (21/04/2016 | 7.15 P.M)
About the incredible power of human imagination, which follows the interwoven threads of Gabriel García Márquez’s life and work – “Gabo” to all of Latin America – with the narrative tension of an investigation. . How did a boy from a tiny town on the Caribbean coast become a writer who won the hearts of millions? How did he change our perception of reality with his work? The answers lies in the incredible story of Gabriel García Márquez, the 1982 Nobel Prize winner in Literature. The film follows the life of the author, known as “Gabo” to all of Latin America, as his sensual, “magical” sensibility leads him to the forefront of the political struggles of the 1970s and 1980s and into the hearts of readers across the world.
Five intertwined stories. A couple of lovers stays 24 hours under the sheets emulating Yoko Ono and John Lennon. A well to do girl is trapped in an elevator with a messenger and an accountant, with whom she falls in love. A group of writers get drunk with mezcal in a van, recalling their eighties times. A psychoanalyst locks herself in the bathroom to commit suicide and an executive and mother hides in the brooms closet of her office to heal her broken heart with wine. They are related with each other and communicate with their cellphones
13. Undertow /Contracorriente/(2009)/col/97min/Peru/Directed by Javier Fuentes-León (22/04/2016 | 5.45 P.M)
A Peruvian fisherman is torn between his conscience and the morals of his village. Miguel (Cristian Mercado) has been carrying on an affair with Santiago (Manolo Cardona), who wishes they could live their relationship in the open rather than meeting clandestinely. However, Miguel is married, and his wife has no idea about the affair. When Santiago drowns, his ghost asks Miguel to find and bury his body, forcing Miguel to confront the past — and, perhaps more painfully, himself.
Awards : 10 wins & 9 nominations/Peruvian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 83rd Academy Awards
14. The Gold Bug /El escarabajo de oro o Victorias / 2014 /Argentina / 102 min/Spanish/Directed by Alejo Moguillansky, Fia-Stina Sandlund (22/04/2016 | 7.15 P.M)
After a hustling actor finds a treasure map detailing the location of ancient gold hidden near a town in the Misiones province named after the 19th-century politician Leandro N. Alem, he successfully persuades the producers to reframe the project as a portrait of the radical Alem (swapping feminist politics for anti-Eurocentric ones) and move the production there—so he can better search for the treasure. A portrait of a clash between a Swedish artist and an Argentinian director.
15. In the Name of the Girl /En el Nombre de la Hija/(2011)/108min/col/Ecuador/Directed by Tania Hermida (23/04/2016 | 4.00 P.M)
It is the summer of 1976 in a valley of the Andes Mountains in Ecuador. Manuela, educated according to the communist and atheistic ideals of her beloved father, believes her parents to be on a revolutionary mission in Colombia, while she and her five-year-old brother Camilo have to spend the summer at their grandparents’ farmhouse.Of course, in a catholic-conservative household a nine-year-old’s Marxist world outlook will cause trouble. Manuela eagerly defends her father’s political and philosophical ideas, unwilling to obey her grandmother’s conservative rules. The old lady, alarmed by the harmful influence Manuela has on the rest of the family’s kids, threatens to send her back to her parents unless she accepts to be baptized. Manuela, who is determined not to interrupt her parents’ very important mission, accepts the deal.Following the family tradition according to which the eldest daughters and grand-daughters must carry the name of the Virgin of Dolores, her name is changed to ‘Manuela de los Dolores’ during the baptism ceremony. Outraged by this imposition, Manuela defies her grandparents’ most severe rule and, together with her cousins, sets out to explore the forbidden library of the farmhouse, where they find schizophrenic Uncle Felipe, who has been kept hidden for years, devoted to setting words free from the constraints of dogmas.The encounter with her uncle’s crazy wisdom provides Manuela the means to free herself from her own dogmas and changes her relationship with words – including her own name.
In Buenos Aires, Roberto is a lonely man and the owner of a hardware store. One day, Roberto helps a Chinese named Jun who shows a tattoo with an address on his arm. Roberto heads to the spot with Jun and discovers that the place belonged to Jun’s uncle. Roberto goes with Jun to the police station, the China’s embassy and a Chinese neighborhood to seek out his uncle but it is a fruitless search. Roberto finds a delivery boy to translate to Jun and learns the dramatic story of his life.
Awards : 11 wins & 18 nomination
17. Língua, Vidas em Portugues /2002/ Docu/105min/col/Portuguese/Brazil/Directed by Victor Lopez (23/04/2016 | 7.15 P.M)
Documentary about the Portuguese language, and people who speak it around the world. Documentary filmed in six countries:. Portugal, Mozambique, India, Brazil, France and Japan is a dip in the many stories of the Portuguese language and its permanence between different cultures of the planet. Lusosphere is mostly spoken, caught in the daily lives of illustrious characters and anonymous from four continents. It was reinvented hundreds of times and powered by successive waves of settlers, immigrants and descendants. In Portugal and Mozambique, Brazil and in Goa, you see the Portuguese heritage, always surprising and permanently renewed. Following the paths of his characters and hearing their experiences and feelings, memories and hopes about the future, the documentary reproduces the movement of a language that has conquered the world and retraces its path in anticipation of being reunited.
