For nearly 15 years, Ibermedia has been instrumental in the continued ascent of Latin American, Spanish, and Portuguese films. This intergovernmental organization began with seven member countries; today films from over 20 member countries appear on festival schedules and in cinemas the world over.
Ibermedia facilitates and finances co-productions of documentaries and fiction films between its Spanish and Portuguese-language member countries, and grants money for international distribution and promotion. Professional film organizations from the country sponsoring the proposal select the projects to be helped by the Ibermedia umbrella organization, thus ensuring each project’s autonomy; no strings are attached to the joint financing, which protects the filmmaker’s personal vision and allows the project to retain the rooted particularity of a national and/or personal-historical tradition. To date, Ibermedia has supported over 500 films—encompassing a broad variety of filmmaking genres and approaches—and provided training for professionals.
This is MoMA’s third program of Ibermedia films, and this year’s selection ranges from internationally renowned directors like Portugal’s Manoel de Oliveira (The Strange Case of Angelica) to promising new talents from countries with rapidly developing film cultures, including Venezuela’s Marité Ugás (The Kid Who Lied), Colombia’s Ruben Mendoza (La sociedad del semáforo), and Ciro Guerra, whose 2009 ode to music and landscape, The Wind Journeys, opens the series.
Organized by Jytte Jensen, Curator, Department of Film.
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Complete Schedule:
Thursday, December 1
8:00 Los viajes del viento. (The Wind Journeys). 2009. Colombia. Written and directed Ciro Guerra. With Marciano Martinez, Yull Nunez, Rosendo Romero. This involving tale of a master-and-pupil relationship gains resonance from a spectacular widescreen backdrop, intimations of fairy tale tropes and trials, and a touch of the supernatural. Ignacio, a lifelong minstrel who has vowed never to play again, journeys through the Colombian countryside to return his accordion—which he believes to be cursed—to his original mentor. He is followed by a restless, talentless teenage wannabe musician who is determined to learn to play, well, anything. The drama and suspense ratchet up as these ill-matched companions encounter strange adventures in extended sequences of great beauty and emotional impact. Guerra’s talent as a director lies not only in the visual beauty of his images, but in his ability to let a deceptively simple story reach deeper layers of truth. In Spanish, Bantu, local dialects; English subtitles. Introduced by Guerra.
Friday, December 2
4:00 La sociedad del semáforo. (Stoplight Society). 2010. Colombia/Spain/France/Germany. Directed by Rubén Mendoza. With Alexis Zuniga, Abelardo Jaimes, Gala Bernal. In the city, thousands of displaced peasants gather around traffic lights to beg at intersections. One of them, Raul, who makes ends meet by collecting recyclable garbage, stubbornly claims he has invented a device that extend the duration of red lights, allowing more time for acrobats, jugglers, beggars, and peddlers to collect money in stalled traffic. In the midst of this fantastic delirium, the lives of Raul and his fellow travelers slides further towards the abyss, and their predicament becomes a symphony of despair, devoid of hope and touched by anarchy. Innovative and unafraid to take on seriously flawed characters, the film captures a barely acknowledged underbelly of urban life, but its real achievement is the discovery of sardonic humor and even joy in the most unlikely places. In Spanish; English subtitles. 108 min.
7:00 Vienen por el oro, vienen por todo (They Come for the Gold, They Come for it All). 2010. Argentina/Chile. Directed by Cristián Harbaruk, Pablo D’Aló Abbá. In Argentine Patagonia, the Canadian company Meridian Gold was granted mineral rights to a mountain located seven kilometers from the town of Esquel. To extract the rich veins of silver and gold, the company used huge amounts of water and cyanide, a practice that strongly polarized opinions in the town. With 50 percent of the population living below the poverty limit, the mining enterprise appeared to be a financial boon, leading politicians to talk about “progress and civilization.” But the townspeople collected signatures opposing the mine, claiming that, as one man puts it, “Gold sustains oppression, hunger, and destruction of the people.” Coming down firmly on the side of environmental activists, this exhaustively researched documentary chronicles the epic victory of a little town defeating huge political and economical powers to make informed choices about their own futures. In Spanish; English subtitles. 87 min. Introduced by Hugo Castro Fau, Producer.
Saturday, December 3
1:30 Del amor y otros demonios (Of Love and Other Demons). 2010. Costa Rica/Colombia. Directed by Hilda Hidalgo. With Eliza Triana, Pablo Derqui, Margarita Rosa de Francisco. Based on the novel by Gabriel García Márquez, Of Love and Other Demons is set during a time of inquisition and slavery in colonial Cartagena de Indias. The child of delinquent parents, 13-year-old Sierva María is raised in her family’s crumbling mansion by African slaves. When a rabid dog bites the outgoing, curious girl, her superstitious guardians assume that she is possessed, and her father reluctantly sends her away to a convent to be healed. Cayetano, the passionate young protégé of the bishop who is charged with overseeing her exorcism, is unprepared to confront his own demons. Costa Rican director Hidalgo’s debut uncovers an intimate personal narrative within a dreamlike landscape of noblemen, lepers, slaves, and clergy. In Spanish; English subtitles. 97 min.
4:00 La Yuma. 2010. Nicaragua/France/Spain. Directed and co-written by Florence Jaugey. With Alma Blanco, Gabriel Benavides, Rigoberto Mayorga. La Yuma, the first fiction feature film to emerge from Nicaragua in 20 years, vividly depicts the life of a strong-willed and rebellious 18-year-old girl. Trapped in a gang she has outgrown, she dreams of becoming a boxer and longs for independence. In the ring, she finds release for the pent-up aggression and anger from life in the slums of Managua, a loveless family life, and friends who waste their lives on petty crime. Things take a turn for the better when a famous boxing teacher takes her under his wing, and she meets Ernesto, a journalism student who lives a protected life far from the violence of Managua’s streets. In spite of their differences, they feel an affinity through their shared desire to find a place for themselves in the world, but their love leads to dangerous tension with Yuma’s jealous ex-boyfriend. Blanco’s passionate portrayal of Yuma make this somewhat familiar “female Rocky” fresh and appealing, and Jaigey’s feel for the fraught atmosphere of the slums and the daily rituals of teenagers on the edge makes for a vivid, engaging first film. In Spanish; English subtitles. 91 min.
7:00 El niño pez (The Fish Child). 2009. Argentina/Spain/France. Directed by Lucía Puenzo. Based on the novel by Puenzo. With Inés Efron, Emme, Pep Munné. Lala, a teenager from the most exclusive suburban neighborhood of Buenos Aires, is in love with Guayi, her 20-year old Paraguayan maid. They dream of living together in Paraguay, on the shores of lake Ypoá. When Lala’s father is murdered, it hastens the girls’ plans and threatens to uncover their secrets. Part murder plot, part heroic escape tale, and all forbidden love story, the narrative is bound together by the legend of the fish child, who guides the drowned to the bottom of the lake. Recapturing the distinctive voice and rhythm she established with her first film, XXY, Puenzo manipulates the rules of genre cinema to make a high-speed thriller that shies away from moral judgment. In Spanish; English subtitles. 96 min.
Sunday, December 4
2:00 El chico que miente (The Kid Who Lies). 2011. Venezuela/Peru/Germany. Directed by Marité Ugás. With Iker Fernández, Francisco Denis, María Fernanda Ferro. A 13-year-old boy journeys along the Venezuelan coast, searching, it seems, for something or someone. In order to survive he captivates people with the ever-changing tale of how he survived the mudslide that tore away much of the area where he lived with his parents. His true past, however, gradually becomes clearer through evocative flashback sequences interspersed into his tall tales like corrections from his subconscious mind. Ten years ago the mudslide took his mother, and now he seeks her out with only a miniscule bit of information. The road is difficult, but it’s his to discover, and the pieces fall gradually into place as the young boy comes to terms with his traumatic past. In Spanish; English subtitles. 99 min. Introduced by Ugás.
5:00 El extraño caso de Angélica (The Strange Case of Angelica). 2010. Portugal/Spain/France/Brazil. Written and directed by Manoel de Oliveira. With Ricardo Trepa, Pilar Lopez de Ayala, Leonor Silveira. Late one night Isaac, a photographer, is commissioned to take the last photo of a beautiful young woman who has just died and is laid out in her sumptuous wedding gown. And so begins an exceedingly strange love story. Set in the present—though the production design flirts with period touches—the film is fraught with heightened spiritual and Catholic overtones and the narrative occasionally interrupted by extended conversations on engineering, the nature of science, economic collapse, and climate change. Impossible love has been a recurring theme throughout Oliveira’s 80-plus-year filmography—including at least one film per year since 1990—and this story represents a particularly satisfying apotheosis. In Portuguese; English Subtitles. 97 min.
Monday, December 5
4:00 Girimunho (Swirl). 2011. Brazil/Spain/Germany. Directed by Clarissa Camplina, Helvecio Marins. With Maria Sebastiana Martins Alvaro, Maria de Conceicao Gomes de Moura, Luciane Soares da Silva, Jr. Set in a small town in the arid highlands of Brazil’s Belo Horizonte region, Swirl lovingly records the barely manifest reactions of an older faith healer as she attempts to cope with the sudden death of her husband. Though her children come to visit, they have their own lives to live, and it falls to a friend who lives nearby to help her deal with her sorrow. The two old women cope with everyday needs and seek to understand the deeper meaning of their existence. Braganca’s elliptical storytelling is integral in portraying beliefs, myths, and habits of a rural Brazil that is being swept aside with the passing of the older generation. In Portuguese, English subtitles. 87 min. Introduced by Helvecio Marins.
Wednesday, December 7
4:00 Del amor y otros demonios (Of Love and Other Demons). 2009. Costa Rica, Colombia. Directed by Hilda Hidalgo. With Eliza Triana, Pablo Derqui, Margarita Rosa de Francisco. In Spanish; English subtitles. 97 mins. (See Saturday, December 3, 1:30).
7:00 El niño pez (The Fish Child). 2009. Argentina/ Spain/ France. Directed by Lucía Puenzo, based on her own novel. With Inés Efron, Emme, Pep Munné. In Spanish, English subtitles. 96 mins. (See Saturday, December 3, 7:00).
Thursday, December 8
4:00 La Yuma. 2010. Nicaragua, France, Spain. Directed and co-written by Florence Jaugey. With Alma Blanco, Gabriel Benavides, Rigoberto Mayorga. In Spanish; English subtitles. 91 mins. (See Saturday, December 3, 4:00).
7:00 La sociedad del semáforo. (Stoplight Society). 2010. Colombia, Spain, France, Germany. Directed by Rubén Mendoza. With Alexis Zuñiga, Abelardo Jaimes, Gala Bernal. In Spanish, English subtitles. 108 mins (See Friday, December 2, 4:00).
Friday, December 9
4:00 Las malas intenciones (Bad Intentions). 2010. Peru/Spain/Germany. Directed by Rosario Gracía-Montero. With Fátima Buntinx, Katerina D’onofrio, Paul Vega. Following a string of widely acclaimed short films, Gracía-Montero has created an ambitious debut feature that manages to be simultaneously poignant, amusing, and a little unsettling. Eight-year-old Cayetana (an effortlessly natural Buntix) is a somewhat morose kid, captivated by reports of guerrilla attacks and fascinated with the lives and deaths of the heroes of Peruvian independence. When she learns that her divorced mother is pregnant, Cayetana becomes convinced that she will die on the day her baby brother is born. Her beautiful—and funny—dream sequences metaphorically explore the coming of age of a girl alert and sensitive enough to feel ambivalent about an uncertain future. In Spanish, English subtitles. 117 mins.
7:00 Boleto al paraiso (Ticket to Paradise). 2010. Cuba/Spain/Venezuela. Directed and cowritten by Gerardo Chijona Valdes. With Miriel Cejas, Héctor Medina, Dunia Matos. In 1993, during Cuba’s economically depressed “special period,” Eunice, a motherless teenager, runs away from home to escape her sexually abusive father. Trying to reach her married sister in a village near the capital, she hitchhikes with a group of homeless teenagers she meets on the road. Inspired by this new camaraderie—and her special bond with the charismatic Aljandro, a young rocker who feels discriminated against by society—Eunice makes their dreams and hopes for freedom part of her struggle for survival. As the damaged teens reach Havana, their search for paradise takes them through the fractured underbelly of Cuban counterculture in the time of AIDS. The filmmaker navigates unexpected narrative turns with finesse, tapping into the very real desperation of young people struggling to forge personal identities in a society with little support to offer. The young actors inhabit their roles with a natural energy and abandon, to great emotional effect. In Spanish; English subtitles. 88 mins.
Saturday, December 10
1:30 Los viajes del viento. (The Wind Journeys). 2009. Colombia, Directed and written by Ciro Guerra. With Marciano Martinez, Yull Nunez, Rosendo Romero. In Spanish, Bantu, local dialect; English subtitles. 117 mins. (See Thursday, December 1, 8:00).
4:00 Vienen por el oro, vienen por todo (They Come for the Gold, They Come for it All). 2010. Argentina, Chile. Directed by Cristián Harbaruk, Pablo D’Aló Abbá. In Spanish; English subtitles. 87 mins. (See Friday, December 2, 7:00).
7:30 El extraño caso de Angélica (The Strange Case of Angelica). 2010. Portugal, Spain, France, Brazil. Directed and Written by by Manoel de Oliveira. With Ricardo Trepa, Pilar Lopez de Ayala, Leonor Silveira. In Portuguese, English Subtitles. 97 mins. (Sunday, December 4, 5:00).
Sunday, December 11
2:00 Boleto al paraiso (Ticket to Paradise). Cuba, Spain, Venezuela. Directed and co-written by Gerardo Chijona Valdes. With Miriel Cejas, Héctor Medina, Dunia Matos. In Spanish; English subtitles. 88 mins. (See Friday, December 9, 7:00).
5:00 Te Extraño (I Miss You). 2010. Mexico/Argentina. Directed by Fabian Hofman. With Fermin Volcoff, Martin Slipak, Susana Pampin. Inspired by actual events in the director’s life, I Miss You is the evocative story of two brothers coming of age in the 1970s, during the Argentine military dictatorship’s “dirty war.” Fifteen year-old Javier idolizes his older brother, Adrian, who has recently returned from compulsory military service. As the political situation heats up, it becomes clear that Adrian now belongs to a group of antigovernment activists, and he soon disappears. Young Javier is abruptly sent to stay with relatives in Mexico, where he tries to forge an identity in exile but finds himself burdened with the premature separation from his family and the weight of collective guilt. By the time of the bittersweet reunion with his parents and grandmother in Uruguay, only Javier is willing to face the truth about his brother and confront a future that looks far different from the one he had planned. This story of exile and struggle, family and childhood, illuminates the interconnectedness and contrasts between Mexico and Argentina during the period. In Spanish; English subtitles. 96 min.
Wednesday, December 14
4:00 Te Extraño (I Miss You). 2010. Mexico/Argentina. Directed by Fabian Hofman. With Fermin Volcoff, Martin Slipak, Susana Pampin. In Spanish; English subtitles. 96 min. (See Sunday, December 11, 5:00).
7:00 Las malas intenciones (Bad Intentions). Perú, Spain, Germany. Directed by Rosario Gracía-Montero. With Fátima Buntinx, Katerina D’onofrio, Paul Vega. In Spanish; English subtitles. 117 mins. (See Friday, December 9, 4:00).
Thursday, December 15
4:00 El chico que miente (The Kid Who Lies). 2011. Venezuela, Peru, Germany. Directed by Marité Ugás. With Iker Fernández, Francisco Denis, María Fernanda Ferro. In Spanish, English subtitles. 99 mins. (See Sunday, December 4, 2:00)
7:00 Girimunho (Swirl). 2011. Brazil, Spain, Germany. Directed by Clarissa Camplina and Helvecio Marins . With Maria Sebastiana Martins Alvaro, Maria de Conceicao Gomes de Moura, Luciane Soares da Silva. Jr. In Portuguese, English subtitles. 87 mins. (See Monday, December 5, 4:00). Introduced by Luis Miñarro, Producer.