Tulane University

This series is made possible through the generosity of the Stone Center for Latin American Studies at Tulane University, Las Américas Film Network, John Burton Harter Charitable Trust, and Ceballos Legal Consulting and Immigration Law.

Tulane faculty, staff & students get in free with ID.

For more information, see the Zeitgeist Home.
For movie information and previews, see Las Américas Films.

Series Schedule

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 19 FROM 4:00 – 7:00 p.m.
LAMBI A RELE: A CELEBRATION OF ARTS TO BENEFIT HAITI.
Come immerse yourself in the culture of Haiti. Sample traditional Haitian cuisine and rum punch. There will be Haitian art on display, as well as recent photographs from Haiti for sale. We will also have a silent auction of original works by local artists, a raffle with great prizes from local businesses, live music and more! Contact Lambi.A.Rele@gmail.com for more info. All proceeds from this event will be donated to Yele Haiti for earthquake relief. http://yele.org

FEBRUARY 19 – 24 @ 7:30 p.m.
EL GENERAL by Natalia Almada – (Mexico) – Past and present collide in this extraordinarily crafted film when filmmaker Natalia Almada, winner of the US Directing Award: Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival, brings to life audio recordings she inherited from her grandmother. These recordings feature Alicia Calles‘€™s reminiscences about her own father‘€“Natalia‘€™s great-grandfather‘€“General Plutarco Elías Calles, a revolutionary general who became president of Mexico in 1924. Combining meticulously edited audio, haunting photographs, archival newsreels, and old Hollywood films with an original evocative soundtrack, sweeping footage of modern-day Mexico City, and interviews with today‘€™s working poor. Winner U.S. Directing Award: Documentary at Sundance 2009 and the Cine Las Americas, Audience Award, Best Documentary. 83 minutes

FEBRUARY 19 – 24 @ 9:30 p.m.
TONY MANERO by Pablo Larrain – (Chile) – As Augusto Pinochet holds Chile in the grip of dictatorship, a fifty year old man obsessed with John Travolta‘€™s character from Saturday Night Fever . Raúl Peralta and his friends gather in a small bar and act out their favorite scenes from the film. When the national television announces a Tony Manero impersonating contest it seems he may finally have a shot at living his dreams. But as Raúl and his dancing partners (also underground resistance fighters who rail against the regime) are persecuted by the secret police. Chile’s Official 2008 Academy award entry. Winner Grand Prize and Best actor at the Havana Film Festival and the KNF Director’s Prize Rotterdam Film Festival, 98 minutes

FEBRUARY 26 – MARCH 4 @ 5:30 p.m.
LIVERPOOL by Lisandro Alonso – (Argentina) – One of the New Argentine Cinema’s most distinguished directors, has a singular voice that speaks once again in Liverpool. A graceful ode to solitude and the existential need for meaning, this story follows a sailor named Farrel on a lonely journey to the southernmost region of Argentina. After traveling the world, Farrel asks the captain if he can leave the ship to see if his mother still lives in their old village. Alonso’s wide shots of formidable mountain ranges connects Farrel’s gloomy trek through the snow with the dark past that haunts him, creating an engrossing aesthetic that sets the director apart as a master of style and technique. Grand Jury Prize Gijon Int. Film Festival. 84 mins.

FEBRUARY 26 – MARCH 4 @ 7:30 p.m.
BIRDWATCHERS by Marcco Bechis – (Brazil) – In Mato Grosso do Sul, in rural Brazil, hordes of tourists come for bird watching. The Guarani-Kaiowá, the indigenous people who really own the land, are confined to a nearby reservation and are paid to stand naked along the shores of the river in face paint to provide thrills for the visitors. Fed up with their officially-imposed financial and spiritual impoverishment, tribal leaders and a local shaman organize a protest. Casting local non- professionals, the director draws out performances that highlight the sharp clash between tyranny and a spiritual and ancient culture connected to nature. 104 minutes

FEBRUARY 26 – MARCH 4 @ 9:30 p.m.
GIGANTE by Adrian Biniez – (Uruguay) – Jara is a shy and lonely 35-year-old security guard at a supermarket on the outskirts of Montevideo. He works the night shift, monitoring the surveillance cameras of the entire building. One night he discovers Julia, a 25-year-old cleaning woman, through one of the cameras. Night after night, he watches her on the cameras while she works. Soon he starts following her after work: to the cinema, the beach and even to a date with another man. Jara’s life becomes a series of routines and rituals around Julia, but eventually he finds himself at a crossroad and must decide whether to give up his obsession or confront it. Winner Best First Feature, Grand Jury Prize and the Alfred Bauer Prize at the Berlin Int. Film Festival. 85 minutes

March 5 & 7 @ 7:30 p.m.
NORA’S WILL by Marciana Chenillo – (Mexico) Before dying, Nora schemes a plan to make José, her ex-husband, take care of her corpse. But she is missing something. For the only flaw in the plan – a mysterious photograph forgotten under the bed- will lead to an unexpected outcome reminding us that the biggest love stories are sometimes hidden in the smallest places. Winner Audience Award Miami Film Festival and Jury Prize and Best First Feature Los Angeles Latino Film Festival. 90 minutes

March 5 & 7 @ 9:30 p.m.
DOS PATRIAS (TWO HOMELANDS, CUBA AND THE NIGHT) by Christian Liffers – (Cuba) Framed by the beautiful poetry of the oppressed Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas, this revealing documentary features memorable portraits of five gay men and one transsexual woman living in and around Havana. It has been more than ten years since the success of films like Strawberry and Chocolate and Gay Cuba, so Two Homelands provides a fresh and important look at the present-day gay culture and community of an often misunderstood country that is still stuck in the past but also very dynamic and full of surprises. Cuba is the country where they live, but the night is where they thrive. 84 minutes.

March 8 & 9 @ 7:30 p.m.
WHO AM I? (THE FOUND CHILDREN OF ARGENTINA) by Estela Bravo – (Argentina) – What does it feel like to suddenly discover that your parents are not actually your parents, but part of a network of military criminals who murdered your mother and father? The children of Argentina’s disappeared are now young adults struggling with such complex and traumatic discoveries. For three decades, the Plaza de Mayo Grandmothers have searched for their 500 stolen grandchildren, the children of their own children who disappeared in Argentina’s Dirty War. To date, 88 of these missing children have been found and have recovered their true identity. 75 minutes.

March 8 & 9 @ 9:30 p.m.
THE MAN OF TWO HAVANAS by Vivien Weismen Lesnik – (Cuba) – Through the prism of a daughter we explore the past, the present, and the nature of social responsibility and personal sacrifice. The movie contains highly controversial top-secret audiotapes of a CIA trained Cuban exile Terrorist who is in the middle of a trial and incarcerated by Homeland Security. His trial puts the Bush administration’s War on Terror on trial as well. The audiotape excerpts are from an NYT reporter who refuses to turn over these tapes. The never before heard audiotapes will be hotly debated in the media. 93 minutes.

March 10 & 11 @ 7:30 p.m.
THE INHERITORS by Eugenio Polgovsky – (Mexico) – THE INHERITORS immerses us in the daily lives of children who, with their families, survive only by their unrelenting labor. The film takes us into the agricultural fields, 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. This film reveals how the cycle of poverty is passed on, from one generation to another. Grand Prize Festival of New Latin Cinema. 90 minutes.

March 10 & 11 @ 9:30 p.m.
OBLIVION by Heddy Honigmann – (Peru) – Peru’s capital city of Lima, reveals its startling contrasts of wealth and poverty, and how many of its poorest citizens have survived decades of economic crisis, terrorism and government violence, denial of workers’ rights, and political corruption. OBLIVION provides intimate and moving portraits of street musicians, singers, vendors, shoeshine boys, and the gymnasts (some mere children) and jugglers who perform at traffic stops. The film also visits small business owners who although include in the daily interactions of the city‘€™s wealthy, live in near poverty in the city‘€™s slums. Winner International Film Critics Prize and the Silver Dove Award at the Leipzig Documentary Film Festival. 93 minutes.