The graduate students of RLL are pleased to announce the "Latin American Film Series" which will run January 30 - February 27, 2013. The event will feature contemporary films from a variety of countries in Latin America, which have received little exposure in the United States. All showings are 7pm in 2435 North Quad and are FREE and open to the public. All films are subtitled in English.

Latin American Film Series Schedule

>> JANUARY 30

THE CINEMA HOLD UP [Asalto al Cine] (2011)

Irina Gómez Concheiro / Mexico/124 min. 

Negus, Chale, Sapo and Chata are teenagers who grew up in the same rundown district of Mexico City. They spend their days listening to hip-hop, smoking marihuana and fantasizing about the opposite sex. One day they have the bright idea of robbing a movie theater, jeopardizing the one sure thing they have in life—their friendship.

>> FEBRUARY 6

I TRAVEL BECAUSE I HAVE TO, I COME BACK BECAUSE I LOVE YOU [Viajo porque preciso, volto porque te amo] (2009)

Marcelo Gomes & Karim Aïnouz / Brazil/71 min. 

In this hauntingly melancholy film, geologist José Renato, travels to Sertão, an isolated region in Northeastern Brazil. His goal is to assess possible routes for a water canal from the region’s only river. For many of the region’s inhabitants, the canal will be a lifeline, the chance of a future and source of hope. But for those living on the canal’s direct course, it means only requisitions, departure and loss.

>> FEBRUARY 13

UNDERTOW [Contracorriente] (2010)

Javier Fuentes León / 100 min. / 2010 / Perú, Colombia, France, Germany

Miguel is a handsome, young and beloved fisherman in Cabo Blanco, a small fishing village in the Northern coast of Perú, where the community has deep-rooted religious traditions. Miguel is married to the beautiful Mariela, who is 7-months pregnant with their firstborn, but Miguel harbors a scandalous secret: He is having a love affair with another man, Santiago, a painter who is ostracized by the townsfolk for being agnostic and open about his sexuality. When Santiago drowns accidentally in the ocean’s strong undertow, he cannot pass peacefully to the other side. He returns after his death to ask Miguel to look for his body and bury it according to the rituals of the town. Miguel must choose between sentencing Santiago to eternal torment or doing right by him and, in turn, revealing their relationship to Mariela and the entire village.

 >> FEBRUARY 19

SOUTHERN DISTRICT [Zona Sur] (2011)

Juan Carlos Valdivia / 108 min. / Bolivia

La Paz’s Zona Sur neighborhood is Bolivia’s most exclusive enclave and has housed the country’s affluent elite for generations. Here, in an adobe-tile-roofed castle, a statuesque matriarch reigns over her spoiled offspring and indigenous servants. Social change, however unwelcome, is on its way. As the mother squabbles with her self-indulgent, oversexed teenage son and clashes with her petulant daughter, her 6-year-old boy wanders the rooftops unsupervised. The scent of impending decline permeates the air, and the threat of aristocratic privileges quickly changing hands heralds a new era in a seemingly interminable class war. Bolivia’s official entry for the Academy® Awards foreign-language film race, this searing portrait of a patrician family in flux eloquently chronicles their final days during a time of intense social change and cogently exposes the bubble of decadence in which they exist.

>> FEBRUARY 27

FROM THE LAND TO THE TABLE [¿Qué Culpa Tiene el Tomate?] (2009)

Alejo Hoijman, Marcos Loayza, Josué Méndez, Carolina Navas, Paola Vieira, Alejandra Szeplaki and Jorge Coira / 107 min

What do you get when you take seven directors from seven different countries with seven different cultures and points of view? From the Land to Your Table is the first documentary of its kind in that it shows the perspectives of seven majorly talented filmmakers and directors from all over Latin America as they capture the conditions and cultural diversity of popular produce markets in their individual countries.

SPONSORS: The Latin American Film Series was made possible by the support of Pragda, the Secretary of State for Culture of Spain, and its Program for Cultural Cooperation with United States' Universities, and in collaboration with the following UM departments: Romance Languages & Literatures, Communications Studies, History of Art, History, Institute for the Humanities, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Language Resource Center, and Screen Arts and Cultures.