The 2010 Census revealed yet another Latino population boom, with the U.S.-Mexican population increasing by 54% from a decade ago. In New York City, specifically, the Mexican population jumped by a whopping 71%. So what better place to bring the best of contemporary Mexican culture than the Big Apple, or rather, La Gran Manzana?
Now in its eighth year, Celebrate México Now! is a two-week cultural festival featuring a variety of events from film screenings to music performances to culinary tastings, representing the best of contemporary Mexico.
This year’s festival runs from Wednesday, September 21 through Saturday, October 1 at venues throughout New York City. Tickets are available directly from each venue. See www.mexiconowfestival.org click here for more. “We are thrilled to bring Celebrate México Now to New York City once again,” says festival director, Claudia Norman. “Mexico is home to so many rich and diverse cultural expressions and we are honored to bring some of that country’s most exciting new artists to New York.”
Celebrate Mexico Now kicks off with México se escribe con J (September 21, King Juan Carlos of Spain Center, NYU), a conversation about the book of the same name that highlights contributions of the gay community to Mexican culture. Nayar Rivera, Michael Schuessler, and Alejandro Varderi will participate, moderated by New York independent curator Earl Dax.
The following night, Anthology Film Archives, Cinema Tropical and the Mexican Cultural Institute of New York join forces to present Gen Mex: Recent Films From México (September 22, Anthology Film Archives), a celebration of the revitalization of Mexican cinema with films by some of the nation’s most exciting emerging directors. The next event will also be film-focused – the North American premiere of the Short Film Winners of the 2010 Morelia International Film Festival (September 23, School of Visual Arts), whose estimable jury includes judges from the Sundance and Huesca Film Festivals, followed by a Q&A with the directors from Mexico.
Over the weekend, the Queens Museum will host the first U.S. performance of Hecho en Mexico (September 24 and 25, Queens Museum of Art), from director Miguel Vaylon. The multidisciplinary performance fuses theatre, dance, video and music to create a statement about stereotypical headlines about contemporary Mexico. Working from a minimalist approach inspired by the experimental theater methods of Jerzy Grotowski, Hecho en Mexico has been performed by local artists in cities worldwide.
Mexico City’s colorful neighborhood of Xochimilco is home to a complex system of canals and the gondola-like boats known as trajineras. These colorful, highly decorated boats were an ancient Aztec transport system in pre-Colombian times, but have now become the focus of a debate around sustainability and environmentalism.
The area in Mexico was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but is nevertheless threatened by environmental degradation and contamination. Yet the self-sufficient lifestyle that grew up around the trajineras serves as inspiration to contemporary urban planners looking for ways to cut down on environmental wear and tear.
Mexican artist and designer Natalia Porter will lead a workshop and panel at the Queens Museum of Art before launching her own reproduction, Trajinera Xochitl (September 25, Queens Museum of Art and Corona Park), at the lake in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
No Mexican cultural celebration would be complete without an event dedicated to the country’s cuisine, and this year’s festival is no exception. Last fall, the UNESCO committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage inscribed Mexican Cuisine on the list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. To celebrate this achievement, chef Daniel Ovadía will prepare representative dishes from the Zoque-Coleto (Chiapas) culture in a panel demonstration about the history and traditions of Mexican gastronomy (September 28, St. John’s University) where audiences will learn how these dishes have been prepared over the last 600 years. The discussion will be followed by a mouth-watering tasting of some of Mexico’s most iconic dishes from these regions.
September 29 brings a very special performance to New York City by Botellita de Jerez, the founding fathers of Mexican rock en español (September 29, S.O.B.’s). Botellita’s legacy includes many records, innumerable public performances rich in ritualistic theatrics, and the founding of the now legendary Mexico City club Rockotitlan, a breeding ground for some of today’s most important rock groups. Botellita brings back its original line up of Francisko Barrios (El Mastuerzo) on drums, Sergio Arau (El Uyuyuy) on guitar and Armando Vega-Gil (El Cucurrucucú) on the bass.
The performance collective called Rey Trueno y su Orquesta performs Radio Soap Opera, a tongue-in-cheek, multimedia showcase (September 30, Bowery Poetry Club) based on the “legend” of pilot Reymundo Alvarez Trueno who was granted the power of rebellion and rock by a Mayan deity and entrusted with creating an orchestra. Most succinctly, this audio-visual experience is one-of-a-kind. No matter where Rey Trueno performs, the Great Shaman’s motto always resounds: ¡Siempre arriba! ¡Nunca baja! Celebrate Mexico Now! closes with two performances by Pasatono (October 1, Family matinee performance at Lincoln Center, evening concert at Casa Mezcal), a folk orchestra dedicated to the musical culture of the Mixtec people. This ensemble of the “people of the clouds” is a reincarnation of the traditional orchestras of strings, winds, and percussion that were once ubiquitous in rural Mexico. Led by Rubén Luengas, who has devoted his life to the preservation and performance of this music, the Pasatono Orquesta has performed at Lincoln Center in New York, the National Center of the Arts in Mexico City, the Macedonio Alcalá Theater in Oaxaca and the Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.
About Celebrate México Now!: Celebrate México Now is New York City’s first and only annual festival of contemporary Mexican art and culture. Encompassing cuisine, dance, film, literature, and music, Celebrate México Now provides New Yorkers with a glimpse of the most intriguing artists and ideas pouring out of Mexico today. Produced by CN Management, the festival was first held in 2004, and over the past seven years has helped bring more than 200 artists and projects to over 60 of New York’s leading cultural institutions. As of press time, Celebrate México Now 2011 is proudly sponsored by Bloomberg, Mexican Cultural Institute, CONACULTA, Telemundo 47, Razorhead Music, Material for the Arts, and REVOLUCION. Celebrate México Now 2011 is officially supported by Mayor Bloomberg’s Latin Media and Entertainment Commission and is a fiscally sponsored project of The Field.
FILMS…
Anthology Film Archives, Cinema Tropical and the Mexican Cultural Institute of New York present
GENMEX: RECENT FILMS FROM MEXICO September 9 – 22, 2011
Mexican cinema has reinvented itself. It’s been over ten years now since Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Amores Perros stormed the Critics’ Week at Cannes, winning its top prize and opening the door to an exciting new era for Mexican cinema. Since then Mexico has witnessed the birth of a vigorous and dynamic generation of young filmmakers who have been challenging many of the traditional and archetypical representations of the country.
Taking advantage of hybrid modes of production, and hand-in-hand with the convoluted political and social changes that the country has experienced in the past decade, the members of this generation have been able to establish solid careers in a very short time span.
Carlos Reygadas, Pedro González-Rubio, Fernando Eimbcke, Natalia Almada, Julián Hernández, and Nicolás Pereda, among many others, are members of this diverse and influential group of filmmakers who have been making waves in the international film circuit. GenMex: Recent Films from Mexico presents works made by some of the most outstanding filmmakers of this generation, including the debut feature film of Gerardo Naranjo (director of the acclaimed Miss Bala), as well as lesser-known yet exciting films that have had very limited exposure in the U.S. Programmed by Carlos A. Gutiérrez, Cinema Tropical.
Presented as part of Celebrate México Now, a citywide festival of contemporary Mexican art and culture produced by CN Management.
Special thanks to Sandro Fiorin, Cristina Garza, and Alex Garcia (FiGa Films), Ondamax Films., Jonás Cuarón, Eireann Harper, Matías Meyer, Paola Herrera, Jonathan Hertzberg (IFC Films), Stephen Kent Jusick (MIX NYC), Demetri Makoulis (Elephant Eye Films), Maru Garzón and Javier Nuñez (The Mexican Film Institute – IMCINE), Claudia Prado (Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica), Jonathan Miller & Livia Bloom (Icarus Films), Mary Kerr (Flaherty Seminar), and Steve Holmgren.
All films in this series are in Spanish with English subtitles.
NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN! THE INHERITORS / LOS HEREDEROS (Eugenio Polgovsky, 2008, 90 min., 35mm.) Distributed by Icarus Films. “The harsh, relentlessly arduous conditions experienced by children toiling in the Mexican countryside are observed with striking vision and cinematic poetry.” –Robert Koehler, Variety The most highly praised and awarded Mexican documentary in many years, The Inheritors immerses us in the daily lives of children who, with their families, survive only by their unrelenting labor. Polgovsky, director of the similarly acclaimed documentary Trópico de Cáncer (2004), spent two years filming in many of the poorest rural areas of Mexico, where children barely bigger than the buckets they carry work long hours, in often hazardous conditions, picking tomatoes, peppers, or beans, for which they are paid by weight. Infants in baskets are left alone in the hot sun, or are breast-fed by mothers while they pick crops. The children Polgovsky films have inherited tools and techniques from their ancestors, but they have also inherited their day-to-day hardships and toil. Friday, September 9 through Thursday, September 15 at 7:15 & 9:15 each night. Additional screenings on Saturday and Sunday at 5:15.
NORTHLESS / NORTEADO (Rigoberto Pérezcano, 2009, 95 min., 35mm.) “Cinema’s fascination with illegal border crossings between Mexico and the U.S. gets a totally fresh take in this delicately poised film. Focused on how life is lived precariously between desperate attempts to cross over, the story follows Oaxaca-born Andrés as he bides his time in Tijuana. He finds a little work at a convenience store and gets friendly with the two women who run it. As the relationships deepen and their individual stories emerge, the emotional costs of the ties that bind are explored with great sensitivity. The sincerity of the minimal story line is balanced by a liberating humor and breathtakingly beautiful images that give life and dignity to Andrés and his fellow travelers.” –New Directors/New Films Friday, September 16 at 7:00; Sunday, September 18 at 9:15
THE CRAMP / EL CALAMBRE (Matías Meyer, 2009, 90 min., 35mm) Julien, a young French comedian, disembarks in Chacahua, a fishing community on Mexico’s pacific coast. His spiritual search, framed by stunning natural scenery, barely conceals his social failure. He is adrift in a world that is completely foreign to him. Then he meets Pablo, a local fisherman who will guide him towards spiritual healing. Relating to this patient, simple man helps Julien come to terms with himself. Based on a short story by celebrated Chinese writer Gao Xingjian, Meyer’s second feature film is a contemplative meditation on anxiety and solitude. Friday, September 16 at 9:00; Monday, September 19 at 7:00
INTIMIDADES DE SHAKESPEARE Y VÍCTOR HUGO (Yulene Olaizola, 2009, 83 min., 35mm) “Dipping a toe into (early) Errol Morris docu waters, Yulene Olaizola sustains a strange, unsettling mood.” –Variety. Yulene Olaizola’s debut film is a thought-provoking portrait of two lonely and strangely intertwined friends. For years, Olaizola’s grandmother Rosa told stories of a handsome young lodger. Living under (and on top of) her roof in the 1980s, he painted strange pictures on the walls and played an important role in Rosa’s emotional life. But this picture of a pleasant, harmless and creative young man slowly gives way to a shocking end. Saturday, September 17 at 2:00; Monday, September 19 at 9:00
YEAR OF THE NAIL / AÑO UÑA (Jonás Cuarón, 2007, 78 min., 35mm) “The serious artistic drive to meld fine photography with cinema is married to a charming tale of young almostlove in Jonás Cuarón’s sweet and memorable debut. The project represents a year’s worth of photos Cuarón took of spontaneous events and day-to-day activities. The fictional narrative about 14-year-old Diego and visiting American college girl Molly gradually emerged out of organizing the photos into sequences, with all but one of the original subjects recording the soundtrack’s voiceover dialogue. … [A] thoughtful, tender but quite hip look at two young people with too much separating them for a match to ever be possible.” –Robert Koehler, Variety Saturday, September 17 at 4:00; Thursday, September 22 at 6:45
FAMILIA TORTUGA (Rubén Imaz, 2006, 139 min., 35mm) The debut feature from writer-director Imaz is an understated and sensitive drama about a family that gathers at their mother’s home on the anniversary of her death. They are overwhelmed with grief and a shared sentiment of haunting absence. At the center of it all is Uncle Manuel, a remarkable man who holds the clan together by doing all he can to help, which includes raising his brother’s children and assisting his trade unionist brother-in-law. Amid lost dreams, the family struggles to survive with one another, but most importantly, with themselves. Saturday, September 17 at 6:00; Wednesday, September 21 at 8:30
PARQUE VÍA (Enrique Rivero, 2008, 86 min., 35mm) Beto is the custodian of a house in Mexico City, left empty for several years, in which he used to work as a domestic helper. The solitude of the last ten years coupled with the monotony and routine of his job have led him to develop a pathological fear of the world outside, to the point of limiting his contacts to only two people: the owner of the house, for whom he has a feeling of deep gratitude and respect that is translated into obedience; and Lupe, a friend, a confidante, and a lover. News that the house is to go on sale causes a dilemma for Beto, who doesn’t know whether he should dare to set forth and live or seek a way of remaining in his confinement. Saturday, September 17 at 9:00; Wednesday, September 21 at 6:30.
MORE THAN ANYTHING IN THE WORLD / MÁS QUE A NADA EN EL MUNDO (Andrés León Becker & Javier Solar, 2006, 90 min., 35mm) Alicia, a seven-year-old girl, lives in an apartment with her mother. When the mother, after a sentimental setback, goes into a depression that makes her sleep for days on end, Alicia and her friend Lucía decide that an old man who lives next door is to blame; he has a gruesome aspect and is surely a vampire trying to possess her mother. So, Alicia decides to go into the neighbor’s apartment to put an end to the curse. Hailed by Variety as an “affecting feature debut”, this film by co-writer/director team Becker and Solar features a powerful performance by Elizabeth Cervantes in the role of the afflicted single mother. Sunday, September 18 at 1:30; Tuesday, September 20 at 9:00
DRAMA/MEX (Gerardo Naranjo, 2007, 92 min., video) Two interlaced stories unfold over the course of the same long, hot day in the once lush and now decadent resort town of Acapulco. The first involves the beautiful and cool Fernanda, who is forced to deal with the sudden emergence of the ex-lover, Chino. Her boyfriend, Gonzalo, must now compete with the intense sexual tension Fernanda and Chino share. The second story concerns Jamie, an office worker with hidden indiscretions, attempting suicide in a beach-front hotel until a precocious and equally dishonest teenage girl disrupts the plan. They will all converge in a stark and harrowing portrayal of moral ambiguity, in this story by filmmaker Gerardo Naranjo, director of the recent Cannes favorite Miss Bala. Sunday, September 18 at 3:30; Tuesday, September 20 at 7:00
RAGING SUN, RAGING SKY / RABIOSO SOL, RABIOSO CIELO (Julián Hernández, 2008, 191 min., 35mm) “One of the most consistent, revelatory cinematic visions anywhere in the world today.” –Michael Koresky, Reverse Shot This is the third and final installment of a trilogy by Hernández, who has been described by Armond White as “Mexico’s finest, yet critically neglected, auteur.” An epic gay romance, the film is a passionate exploration of love, sex, and destiny that tells the story of Kieri and Ryo, two young men whose love is set to a test in a mythical struggle in which loss and death are but inevitable phases in the journey towards happiness. Winner of the Teddy Award for Best Feature at the 2009 Berlin Film Festival, Hernández’s film is a ravishing meditation on the power of desire. Co-presented by MIX NYC, presenter of the NY Queer Experimental Film Festival. Sunday, September 18 at 5:30; Thursday, September 22 at 8:30