CINE CON CULTURA
Each fall during Latinx Heritage Month, Cultura Ithaca! and the Latino Civic Association of Tompkins County organize the Cine con Cultura Latinx American Film Festival in Ithaca, New York. 2024 marks our first decade celebrating the work of Latin American/Latinx filmmakers from all over the continent, providing a glimpse into Latin America and the Latinx-US.
We are thrilled to continue collaborating with local organizations/institutions this year, including our longtime partners Cornell Cinema, Cinemapolis, CUSLAR and the Tompkins County Immigrant Rights Coalition (TCIRC); World Languages, Literatures and Cultures, the LGBTQ Center, Screen Cultures, the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program, and the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival (FLEFF) at Ithaca College; as well as Romance Studies, LASC and the Latina/o Studies Program at Cornell University.
Festival screenings will take place from September 15th, 2024 through October 23th, 2024. There will be a total of 14 films this year from Cuba, Colombia, Paraguay, México, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Chile, Panamá, Costa Rica, and Latinx-US. We have included a wide-ranging selection of feature-length films and documentaries. More than half of the films are free and open to the public. Others have a small fee at Cornell Cinema.
For more information about the films visit https://www.lcatompkins.org/cine/film-trailers-info as well as our social media on Facebook (www.facebook.com/Cineconcultura), Twitter (@cineconcultura), and Instagram (@cineconcultura).
For more information feel free to email us at culturaithaca@gmail.com
And enjoy the festival!
Best,
Enrique González-Conty
Festival Director
Made possible in part with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and Tompkins County, administered by the Community Arts Partnership.
Buena vista social club
Cuba/Germany (1999)
By Wim Wenders
(101 mins)
September 15th and 21st at 5:30pm @Cornell Cinema
Introduced by Prof. Enrique González-Conty (IC)
A film by Wim Wenders that follows the Cuban musicians who formed the Buena Vista Social Club and performed at Carnegie Hall. The film features interviews, live performances, and commentary on the history and culture of Cuban music. (criterion.com)
Date and Time: September 15th and 21st at 5:30pm
Location: Cornell Cinema
The search for a missing woman unspools in two unexpectedly interconnected parts in Laura Citarella's playful new feature. The missing woman is Laura (Laura Paredes), a biologist cataloging plant species in and around the Argentinean city of Trenque Lauquen. But in order to uncover the truth of Laura's disappearance, a profusion of mysteries must be explored. There's the question of love letters hidden in books in the local library, the discovery of a new species of flower, and then there's the mysterious being, rumored to be haunting the lake at the center of town. From El Pampero Cine, the collective behind La Flor, comes a labyrinthine tale of obsessive pursuit and the quest for personal freedom. (from Cornell Cinema's website)
Trenque Lauquen
Argentina (2022)
Date and Time: September 16th at 7:30pm
Location: Cornell Cinema
By Laura Citarella
(262 mins)
In 1987, Argentine musician Fito Páez visited Cuba for the first time, invited by Pablo Milanés. His presence at a music festival shook the island, to which he'd return many times; he'd also drink from their tropical sounds. Sitting at the terrace of a traditional hotel in Havana, Fito sums up his story with Cuba, its musicians, its people and also its contradictions. (from filmfreeway.com)
(Co-sponsored by Romance Studies at Cornell University)
La Habana de Fito
Cuba/Argentina (2022)
Date and Time: Saturday September 23rd - All Day Online - FREE
Location: Online - Xerb Tv
By Juan Pin Vilar
(90 mins)
Claé and Bruô are secret agents from enemy Kingdoms sent in a world controlled by Giants that is in the imminence of a terrible war. They must overcome their differences and combine forces to find the Perlimps, mysterious creatures who can ultimately find a way to peace. Don’t miss this visually arresting, animated adventure from Alê Abreu, the director of Boy and the World (O menino e o mundo). (from Cornell Cinema's website)
Perlimps
Brazil (2022)
Date and Time: September 24th at 2:30pm
Location: Cornell Cinema
By Alê Abreu
(80 mins)
Domingo y la niebla
Costa Rica (2022)
By Ariel Escalante
(92 mins)
In the tropical mountains of Costa Rica, widower Domingo owns a piece of land which is coveted to build a new highway. When the contractors send in thugs to intimidate the community, the neighbors leave one by one, but Domingo refuses to give in, especially as he knows that the land hides a special and mystical secret. (from Cornell Cinema's website)
Date and Time: Thursday September 28th at 7pm
Location: Cornell Cinema
Stewards of the Land is a feature documentary about Stephanie, Ian, and Alfredo, three young landless ecological farmers in Puerto Rico striving to produce healthy food for local consumption. In this economically depressed US-territory, producing food locally is urgent. The archipelago sits on the path of powerful hurricanes, an increasing threat as the climate crisis worsens. Puerto Rico is highly dependent on food imports and a third of its population lives food insecurity. The story begins when the protagonists arrive for the first time to the public lands they rent. The farms have been abandoned for decades and lack the most basic infrastructure to get started. The story follows the protagonists as they struggle to get the farms running before and after powerful hurricanes devastate the archipelago. The documentary shows the protagonists’ grit as they attempt to carve a living without land ownership or capital. (from the PHLAFF website)
Serán las dueñas de la tierra
Puerto Rico (2022)
By JuanMa Pagán Teitelbaum
(92 mins)
Date and Time: Friday September 29th at 5pm
Location: Committee on US-Latin American Relations Office-CUSLAR (Anabel Taylor Hall, 3rd Floor,
Cornell University)
Brazil/USA (2022)
By Juliana Curi
(72 mins)
Director Juliana Curi’s feature documentary debut illuminates Indigenous contemporary trans visual artist Uýra. The lyrical and eye-popping film follows Uýra as they travel through the Amazon forest on a journey of self-discovery using performance art and ancestral messages to teach Indigenous youth the significance of identity and place. Through dance, poetry, and stunning characterization, Uýra confronts structural racism, transphobia, and environmental destruction, while emphasizing the interdependence of humans and the environment. (from Cornell Cinema's website)
Date and Time: Friday October 6th at 7pm
Location: Cornell Cinema
In the 1970s, under the thumb of unprecedented repression, journalist Elias Barahona infiltrated the heart of the Guatemalan government. Becoming known only as “The Mole,” his work uncovering the regime’s transgressions revealed brazen acts of political violence and helped lift the wall of silence that had fallen over the nation. In this chilling investigation, director Anais Taracena weaves an intimate tale of the daring work of one of her country’s most fearless changemakers. (from DOC NYC)
(Co-sponsored by the Committee on US-Latin American Relations-CUSLAR)
El silencio del topo
Guatemala (2021)
Date and Time: Saturday October 7th at 3:30pm
Location: Cinemapolis
By Anaïs Taracena
(91 mins)
With visually stunning landscapes and immersive sound, GODS OF MEXICO is a poetic survey of the vast landscapes and rich diversity of several communities of rural Mexico. Using richly saturated color and hypnotic black-and-white interludes, filmmaker Helmut Dosantos takes viewers through salt pans, deserts, highlands, jungle, and underground mines—paying tribute to those who fight to preserve their cultural identity amidst the shadows of modernization. (from Mendo Film Fest)
Gods of Mexico
Mexico/Italy (2022)
Date and Time: Sunday October 8th at 3:30pm
Location: Cinemapolis
By Helmut Dosantos
(96 mins)
Eami means ‘forest’ in Ayoreo. It also means ‘world’. The indigenous Ayoreo-Totobiegosode people do not make a distinction: the trees, animals, and plants that have surrounded them for centuries are all that they know. They now live in an area experiencing the fastest deforestation on the planet.
Paraguayan director Paz Encina travelled to Chaco for this film. She immersed herself in Ayoreo-Totobiegosode mythology, and listened to heartrending stories about how the people are being chased off their land. Based on the knowledge she acquired, she made a dreamy, magic-realist film about a little girl called Eami. After her village is destroyed and her community disintegrates, Eami wanders the rainforest. She is the bird-god – she explains in the poetic voice-over, in her own language – looking for whomever may be left. Every now and then, Encina plays snippets of interviews, whilst studying Eami’s immobile face. (from International Film Festival Rotterdam)
Eami
By Paz Encina
(83 mins)
Paraguay (2022)
Date and Time: Sunday October 15th ALL DAY ONLINE (FREE)
Location: Xerb TV
The Eternal Night (La noche eterna) is the story of three Cuban young men that were condemned for their beliefs and their creations. Directed by the acclaimed interdisciplinary artist Coco Fusco, the film is a tribute to the power of the imagination to transcend circumstance. The film is based on the true story of Cuban writer and former political prisoner Néstor Díaz de Villegas. In 1974, Díaz de Villegas was sentenced to six years in prison for writing a poem. He was eighteen years old. Prior to his imprisonment, he had already been subjected to censure several times for his nonconformist attitudes, which were deemed by the revolutionary government to be “ideologically divergent.” (from Cornell Cinema's website)
The Eternal Night
CUBA/USA (2022)
Date and Time: Friday October 20th at 7pm
Location: Cornell Cinema
By Coco Fusco
(70 mins)
