Documentary Features SDLFF 2015

DOCUMENTA RY FE ATUR E S A PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNEY

ANTES DE QUE NOS OLVIDEN Dir. Raymond Telles; Yvan Iturriaga (U.S.,, 60 min., 2014, English)

Dir. Matías Gueilburt

(Mexico, 81 min., 2014, Spanish w/ English subtitles) SUN 3/15 / 7:00 / S13 THU 3/19 / 9:00 / DGC FRI 3/20 / 4:30 / S1

SAT 3/14 / 4:00 / DGC TUE 3/17 / 5:30 / DGC SAT 3/21 / 2:30 / S13 A Photographer’s Journey explores the life and work of Pedro E. Guerrero. Guerrero’s life story is extraordinary, and in many ways classically American. Born and raised in Mesa, Arizona, where he attended “Mexican Only” segregated schools, Guerrero went on to serve in the Second World War, and became a major interpreter of modernist architecture and sculpture of the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s. Guerrero’s photographs provide an insider’s look into three iconic American artists of the 20th century: Frank Lloyd Wright, Alexander Calder and Louise Nevelson. With his images, Guerrero reveals the artists’ personalities and their creative process. A Photographer’s Journey is as much a portrait of the photographer as it is a panorama of the times, places and people Guerrero encountered, in a career that spanned more than 70 years. Latino Public Broadcasting Showcase.

BEAUTIFUL SIN

In 2006, then-president of Mexico, Felipe Calderón, declared a war on drug trafficking. During the six years of this war, violence spread like an epidemic throughout the country. Over 121,000 people died and thousands were forced into exile, kidnapped, or disappeared. Antes de que Nos Olviden is a raw documentary about those who experienced this war, which still continues today. The voices of parents, siblings, wives, and children of the victims tell their personal stories of suffering. With the testimony of renowned sociologists, writers, artists like Demián Bichir, journalists and Mexican politicians including Vicente Fox, we seek to understand how the violence spread across the country in unimaginable directions, leaving no corner unaffected. Antes de que Nos Olviden dares to give a glimpse into Mexico’s deepest wounds with grace and unflinching honesty. HBO Latino Presents.

BURDEN OF PEACE Dir. Gabriela Quiros (Costa Rica/USA, Pending Final Edit, 2014, English; Spanish w/ English subtitles)

Dir. Joey Boink (Guatemala / Spain / Netherlands; 77 min., 2014, Spanish w/ English subtitles)

FRI 3/13 / 5:45 / S12 FRI 3/20 / 9:00 / DGC

SUN 3/22 / 8:15 / S15

What if you desperately wanted a baby, but your country and religion prohibited you from trying the one medical treatment that could help you conceive? Beautiful Sin tells the decade-long story of three couples struggling with infertility, who take the Costa Rican government before an international human rights court to demand the right to use In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). In a region rocked by battles over reproductive rights, the story told in Beautiful Sin is without a doubt the strangest. In the year 2000, anti-abortion activists, with the help of the Catholic Church and a U.S. political group won a legal case that banned IVF in Costa Rica, and gave the embryo legal rights. Beautiful Sin is a cautionary tale about what can happen when a religious ideology such as the "personhood of the embryo" becomes law. Latino Public Broadcasting Showcase.

As the newly appointed Attorney General of Guatemala, Claudia Paz y Paz knows what she has to do. To prove that corruption will no longer be tolerated on her watch, she rounds up a large criminal organization that her own officers appear to have been a part of. Her determination encounters strong resistance from powerful elites, who believed they were above the law before her arrival. Their opposition threatens to thwart Claudia’s plans to create revolutionary changes in Guatemala as evidenced by this gripping and unforgettable documentary. Documania Showcase.

CHALDEAN VOICES

DE ARRIBA PARA ABAJO Dir. Miguel-Angel Alkatib

Soria;

Peter

(USA, 82 min., 2014, English) MON 3/16 / 6:15 / S12 In light of the conflicts in the Middle East and drastic increase in hostility and persecution over the past 10-15 years, thousands of Chaldeans have fled Iraq and the Middle East seeking refuge in the United States. Over the past 30 years, they’ve arrived impoverished and traumatized; and today, over 40,000 Chaldeans reside in the City of El Cajon. This documentary chronicles the experiences of several Chaldean high school students as they assimilate to life in the United States, and exercise their right to become civically engaged with their community.

Fronteras Showcase.

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Dir. Juan Carlos Carrasco (Mexico, 90 min., 2014, Spanish w/ English subtitles)

THU 3/12 / 7:30 / S15 MON 3/16 / 10:15 / S15 World Premiere!

This hilarious documentary follows acclaimed television presenter and iconic Mexican comedian Adal Ramones during his stand up tour in the United States. Viewers will become acquainted with Adal’s rambunctious but always supportive team, and will get to know a tender side of Adal never before captured on-screen. As the tour goes on, Adal must push through a palpable longing for his family, and turn to his loving fans for support.

Spotlight Films Showcase.

Note: screening times & dates subject to change.

DOCU M E N TARY F E ATUR E S DISRUPTION Dir. Pamela Yates (Brazil/Colombia/Peru/USA, 85 min., 2014 Spanish w/ English subtitles)

SAT 3/14 / 12:00 / S2 SUN 3/22 / 3:30 / S12 A band of Latin American activist-economists set out to reduce inequality in the region with a model that places women at the center of the drive for social change. Collaborating with governments, big banks, and women marginalized by poverty in Peru, Colombia, and Brazil, they spread financial literacy horizontally using digital education tools and innovative strategies for financial inclusion.

Through the program, the women become empowered economic and political agents in their communities, leading the process of societal transformation from the bottom up. 3 millions lives have already been changed.

If the model is taken to scale, can 20 million women upend a continent?

Viva Mujeres Showcase.

EL HOGAR AL REVÉS

ILUSIÓN NACIONAL Dir. Olallo Rubio (Mexico, 106 min., 2014, Spanish w/ English subtitles)

FRI 3/13 / 5:15 / S15 SAT 3/14 / 2:00 / S1 Every four years when the World Cup comes along, every nation and its citizens dream of glory. This rousing documentary highlights Mexico’s anticipation of this event and also distinctly captures why the sport has managed to infiltrate every aspect of Mexico’s society throughout the decades.

THE HAND THAT FEEDS Dir. Itzel Martínez (Mexico, 80 min., 2014, Spanish w/ English subtitles)

Dir. Rachel Lears & Robin Blotnick (USA, 85 min., 2014, English and Spanish w/ English subtitles)

FRI 3/13 / 8:45 / DGC SUN 3/15 / 1:30 / S12 SAT 3/21 / 12:30 / S13

SAT 3/14 / 8:30 / DGC WED 3/18 / 5:00 / S12 FRI 3/20 / 5:00 / S12

In an unfair country, women work day and night far from home, while their children learn to survive between loneliness and emptiness. They grow to become teenagers, socially quarantined in one of the many low income neighborhoods of identical small houses, characterized overcrowding and scarcity. Their mothers, mostly workers in transnational factories, go in and out on buses, which take them two hours away from home for their twelve hour shifts. Meanwhile, their children muddle through their day in tiny houses of 40 square meters. In spite of everything, they look for a way to move ahead and pursue their dreams. Documania Showcase.

You’ve seen the headlines; you may have seen the picket lines; but you may not have had a chance to understand the plight of the modern day food service worker. This is where a humble, very shy sandwich maker named Mahoma Lopez, begins his tale. It’s a tale about an undocumented employee uniting his coworkers to fight against the abusive conditions at a popular New York restaurant chain. This epic power struggle turns a single city block into a battlefield in America's new wage wars, and becomes the microcosm of an even greater issue. Latino Public Broadcasting Showcase.

EL INGENIERO

HOTEL NUEVA ISLA

Dir. Diego Arsuaga (El Salvador, 97 min., 2013, Spanish w/ English subtitles)

MON 3/16 / 8:00 / S15 SAT 3/21 / 8:00 / DGC Israel Ticas, aka The Engineer, is the ONLY criminologist using forensic anthropology in the entire country of El Salvador. As an advocate of the dead, he works hard to identify remains that are buried deep in the jungle.

Science on Screen Showcase.

Note: screening times & dates subject to change.

Dir. Irene Gutierrez, Javier Labrador (Spain/Cuba, 70 min., 2014, Spanish w/ English subtitles)

SAT 3/14 / 2:00 / S2 MON 3/16 / 4:00 / S15 FRI 3/20 / 5:00 / DGC The formerly luxurious Hotel Nueva Isla of Old Havana is now in ruins; but it is home for people living on the fringes of society: Jorge, a retired public servant and two neighbors, Waldo and La Flaca. With almost no contact with the outside world, Jorge resembles a Don Quixote gone astray, forgotten by the world he once dearly loved. Day by day his health and body weaken like the walls of Hotel Nueva Isla. His only motivation to keep living is his certainty that in some place of the ruinous hotel, the former owners hid valuable objects before fleeing with the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. This is remarkable filmmaking that captures the parallel between the decay of the human body and the stone, steel, and corporeal places in which they live. Documania Showcase.

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DOCUMENTA RY FE ATUR E S LA ONCE

PLAYING LECUONA Dir. Maite Alberdi (Chile, 70 min., 2014, Spanish w/ English subtitles)

FRI 3/13 / 10:20 / S13 SUN 3/15 / 3:00 / S13 SAT 3/21 / 4:45 / S2

Dir. Pavel Giroud, Juan Manuel Villar Betancort (Spain, 105 min., 2015, Spanish w/ English subtitles)

TUE 3/17 / 8:30 / S12 SUN 3/22 / 12:45 / S1

Filmed over a four-year period, this is a sensitive, heart warming documentation of a monthly tea-and-cakes ritual enjoyed by a group of well-heeled septuagenarian Santiago ladies, who graduated high school together in the 1950s. This is a triumphant examination of the strong bonds that ritual and good friendships can provide over a lifetime. Viva Mujeres Showcase.

A journey through the work and living spaces of pianist and composer Ernesto Lecuona, considered the most universal of Latin America’s pianists. Three outstanding Latin Jazz piano players will guide us in this odyssey: Chucho Valdés in Lecuona’s native Havana fuses jazz with Afro-Cuban rhythms, Michel Camilo in New York, creates elegant soundscapes, and Gonzalo Rubalcaba, in Sevilla, the heart of Andalucía, fuses Latin Jazz with Flamenco. Documania Showcase.

LEJANÍA

EL OBJETO ANTES LLAMADA DISCO Dir. Pablo Tamez Sierra (Mexico, 69 min., 2013, Spanish w/ English subtitles)

Dir. Gregory Allen (Mexico, 80 min., 2014, Spanish w/ English subtitles)

SAT 3/14 / 7:00 / DGC THU 3/19 / 4:10 / S12 a

SUN 3/15 / 1:00 / S2 THU 3/19 / 9:45 / S15 SAT 3/21 / 6:00 / S15

A story of how one family copes with a tragedy over several generations. It is a meditation on memory, family ties, and secrets as well as the difficulty with which new generations adapt to trying times. Documania Showcase.

This concert documentary follows superstar rock group Café Tacvba as they record their most recent album.

The film merges live concert footage with the band’s philosophical musings on the methods they’re utilizing to record their album. The result is pure visual lyricism as the music comes to life and the audience is engaged with the intimate creative process of Café Tacvba. Documania Showcase.

LA REVOLUCIÓN DE LOS ALCATRACES Dir. Luciana Kaplan (Mexico, 90 min., 2014, Spanish w/ English subtitles)

SAT 3/14 / 12:30 / S13 THU 3/19 / 5:00 / DGC Eufrasina is a young woman from Santa Maria Quiegolani, a district of Oaxaca, Mexico. When she runs for mayor at her municipality, her victory is annulled because she is a woman. She embarks on a battle against the still stalwart political hegemony, which denies women the right of vote and the opportunity of being elected to public office. Viva Mujeres Showcase. stone, steel, and corporeal places in which they live.

Documania Showcase.

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Note: screening times & dates subject to change.