FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact for Press: Tamar Fortgang, REDCAT Publicity and Promotions Manager
fortgang@muse.calarts.edu / 661.253.7724 (Do Not Publish)

Contact for Screeners: Martín Plot, Co-Curator
mplot@muse.calarts.edu / 323-697-9416 (Do Not Publish)

Latin America's Street Culture profiled in A New Critical Cinema Film Series at REDCAT--Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater

View the event.

February 25, 2005, Los Angeles, CA--Conceived by the CalArts School of Critical Studies and in collaboration with the Consulates of Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, A New Critical Cinema: Film and Social Criticism in Contemporary Latin America is a three-day film and discussion program at REDCAT from March 17-19 that looks at how Latin American cinema is addressing issues of street culture, urban violence, political conflict, family dynamics, sexual identity and class divisions. This series is curated and organized by Martín Plot and James Wiltgen.

Beginning with a screening of young Argentine filmmaker Lucrecia Martel's impressive directing debut, La Ciénaga, the program includes a selection of recent Latin American films that question, deconstruct, depict and (re)position the social, sexual and political (dis)order of a continent that has experienced profound changes in the last few years. The gamut runs from Marco Bechis's Garage Olimpo, a devastating account of the torture applied by the Argentine military dictatorship, to José Padilha's Bus 174, a scathing analysis of social injustice in Brazil, and Marisa Sistach's Violet Perfume on sexual violence in Mexico.

To further contextualize the cultural, political and social significance of the films, and analyze them within the development of a global economy, two panel discussions will gather visiting and international scholars as well as film professionals, such as Ernesto Semán, Alejandro Pelayo, Cristina Venegas, Mariana Luzzi, Gustavo Noriega, Martín Plot Randal Johnson and James Wiltgen. The first panel will focus on the growth of mega-cities, such as Mexico City, within the framework of globalization. The second will delve into the issue of disappearing, secret detentions and social exclusion in Latin America.

REDCAT, CalArts' downtown center for innovative visual, performing and media arts, is located at the corner of W. 2nd St. and S. Hope St., inside the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex. The series runs March 17-19 from Thursday-Saturday. Ticket prices range $8-6. Full Series pass: $36. Tickets for the panel discussions are free. Seating is general admission. Tickets may be purchased at the REDCAT box office--located at the corner of 2nd and Hope streets, by calling 213.237.2800 or by clicking here.

Film at REDCAT is partially funded by a generous gift from Wendy Keys and Donald A. Pels.

REDCAT's 2004-05 season programming is generously supported by The Herb Alpert Foundation; American Center Foundation; The Annenberg Foundation; Anonymous; Asian Cultural Council; Bank Julius Baer; Booth Heritage Foundation; Canada Council for the Arts; Hyon Chough; CONACULTA; CNMAT; The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc., Performing Ensembles Program; Cultural Contact, the U.S.-Mexico Foundation for Culture; Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States and the French Consulates in Los Angeles and San Francisco; Discover Signs; Robert B. Egelston; Étant Donnés, The French-American Fund for the Performing Arts, a program of the French American Cultural Exchange; Factory Signage & Graphics; The French-American Fund for Contemporary Music, a program of FACE; The J. Paul Getty Trust; Henson International Festival of Puppet Theater; The James Irvine Foundation; The Japan Foundation; The Japan Foundation, Los Angeles; Korea Art Foundation of America; The Korea Times; The Korea Culture and Art Foundation; Korea Foundation; The JL Foundation; The Sharon D. Lund Foundation; Meet The Composer, Creative Connections Program; México Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores; National Dance Project; National Endowment for the Arts; Pasadena Art Alliance; Wendy Keys and Donald A. Pels; Poets and Writers, Inc., through a grant received from The James Irvine Foundation; Lee and Lawrence J. Ramer; Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation; The Judith Rothschild Foundation; Dee Sherwood; Shiseido Co., Ltd.; The Skirball Foundation; SRE/Consulate of Mexico; Eve Steele and Peter Gelles; Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust; Dallas Price-Von Breda; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; Yamaha Corporation and The Walt Disney Company.

California Institute of the Arts, CalArts, the first U.S. higher educational institution to integrate the visual and performing arts under one roof, is recognized as the nation's leading laboratory for the arts. Housing six schools--Art, Critical Studies, Dance, Film/Video, Music and Theater--CalArts embraces creative cross-pollination among diverse art forms and traditions, and strongly encourages each artist to pursue his or her vision within a broad context of social and cultural understanding.

Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater, REDCAT is an interdisciplinary arts center that introduces diverse audiences, students and artists to the most influential developments in the performing, visual and media arts from around the world, and gives artists and future artists in this region the production opportunities and creative support they need to achieve national and international stature.

FESTIVAL SCHEDULE

Thursday, March 17

7 pm Opening Reception

8 pm
Lucrecia Martel: La Ciénaga (The Swamp, Argentina, 2001, 35mm, 103 min.) Shot in the province of Salta, this acid, unprejudiced portrait of the domestic and social implications of an aristocratic family's slide into decadence soon became a cult film. Released only weeks apart from the 2001 financial collapse, Martel's acclaimed first feature was seen in Argentina as an unlikely synecdoche of national decline.

"La Ciénaga has a steamy, drugged-out feel that recalls films by Luis Buñuel as it reveals a series of surreal moments and twisted family relationships... Five years in the making and employing a talented and almost entirely amateur supporting cast, it is a compelling and confident debut for Martel, establishing her as a talent to watch."
-- Toronto International Film Festival

Friday, March 18

6:30 pm
Gerardo Tort: De la calle (Streeters, México, 2001, 35mm, 84 min.) Inspired by a noted play by Jesús González Dávila, Gerardo Tort casts a powerful and disturbing look at the condition of the Mexican urban poor. Chronicling the lives of young people in the mean streets of Mexico City, De la calle addresses corruption, violence, and social inequality in an uncompromising and street-wise manner.

8 pm
Panel I: El DF
A conversation on megacities and globalization with panelists Cristina Venegas (Department of Film, University of California at Santa Barbara,) Alejandro Pelayo (film producer and Consul for Cultural Affairs at the Mexican Consulate, Los Angeles) and Ernesto Semán (urban critic, Officer at the Consulate of Argentina in New York.) Moderator: James Wiltgen (School of Critical Studies, California Institute of the Arts). The panel is designed to examine the changes Mexico City and other major Latin American cities have undergone in the last several decades, in particular the difficulties posed by the seemingly uncharted growth of these mega-cities gathering ten to twenty million people at the dawn of the 21st century. The panel will focus on the paradoxes of growth, changes in the rhythm of life, and various strategies of creation and adoption -- from delegaciones wired in real-time to the global economy via an impressive fiber-optic grid, to the impact of opulence and degradation coexisting in close proximity.

9:30 pm
Marisa Sistach: Nadie te oye: Perfume de violetas (Violet Perfume, México, 2001, 35mm, 90 min.)

"Poignant and deeply moving, Violet Perfume is one of veteran director Marisa Sistach's most powerful films. Setting her sights on the growing problem of sexual assault in Mexico City, Sistach fictionalizes the true story of a friendship between two adolescent girls, Yessica and Miriam, which is torn apart when one of them is brutally raped."
-- Toronto International Film Festival

Ximena Cuevas: Cinépolis, México, 2002, Betacam, 22 min.).
Directed by one of Mexico's most innovative young filmmakers, Cinépolis addresses the impact of globalization on cultural production, identity, and the control of images. Utilizing a number of formal themes and loosely structured around a retro sci-fi motif of 'invasion,' Cuevas poses critical questions about contemporary Mexico City, consumer culture, and life in a megalopolis.

Saturday, March 19

4 pm
Augusto Meneghetti and Elisabetta Pandimiglio: Motoboy (Brazil, 2004, DigiBeta, 92 min.)
Set in São Paulo at the time of the presidential victory of Lula, the film follows the lives of some of the 300,000 moped drivers who deliver everything from pizzas to life-saving medicines. Ever-present and unavoidable, both praised and reviled, they serve as a barometer of dramatic changes in Brazil's largest city.

5:30 pm
Reception

6:30 pm
Marco Bechis: Garage Olimpo (Argentina, 1999, 35mm, 96 min.) Between 1976 and 1979 thousands of Argentine citizens were unlawfully detained, tortured and "disappeared" by the security forces. Garage Olimpo is regarded as the Argentine Battle of Algiers -- revealing the horrifying consequences of a dictatorship violating human rights in the name of national security.

"Marco Bechis opts for a harsh realism dramatically enhanced by seamless editing. But it is the power of the story that makes Garage Olimpo so compelling. All the power to him for having the courage to make this film."
-- Toronto International Film Festival

8 pm
Panel II: Disappearing
A conversation on secret detentions and social exclusion with panelists Mariana Luzzi (sociologist, National University of General Sarmiento, Argentina), Randal Johnson (Department of Spanish and Portuguese, UCLA) and Gustavo Noriega (film critic, El Amante, Buenos Aires.) Moderator: Martín Plot (School of Critical Studies, California Institute of the Arts). In the last twenty years, critical cinema produced in the Latin American Southern Cone has moved from the denunciation of the immorality of the terrorist state to the unveiling of the injustice hidden behind the invisibility of the socially excluded. The panel will analyze the major trends involved in this thematic shift and debate the actual social and political processes discussed in the films shown in the festival.

9:30 pm
José Padilha: Ônibus 174 (Bus 174) Brazil, 2002, 35mm, 122 min.)
In June 2000, Brazil was riveted by the hijacking, in broad daylight, of a bus in an up-scale neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro. The hijacker, Sandro do Nascimento, had been involved in an infamous massacre of street youth seven years prior.

"A stunning film that transfixes, fascinated and confounds, Bus 174 tells in virtually real time the story of a bus hijacking, the elements forecasting its eruption, and the official incompetence that almost inexorably leads those involved into nightmarish tragedy. Padilha seamlessly interweaves news footage, interviews, and a clinical account of the hijacker's personal history to create a chronicle rooted equally in intimate details and national, even global, issues of poverty, criminality and the blinkered state of more privileged populations. The film also poses troublesome questions about the role of media..."
-- Sundance Film Festival

For reservations and general information about this series and REDCAT's upcoming spring schedule, visit www.redcat.org.

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