Eighty-eight-year-old Grandma Mari is draining the life out of her daughter Maritxu. Joxemari, Maritxu’s husband, decides he must take charge of Grandma Mari and get her into a home without his wife getting wind of the situation, and to do this he enlists the help of his son-in-law Kintxo. This may seem a simple task, but Grandma Mari’s stubborn and crafty character causes unexpected mayhem.
Icaros explores the spiritual universe of the Shipibo, an Indigenous people who live by the Ucayali river, one of the main tributaries of the Peruvian Amazon. Mokan Rono, a young Shipibo man, sets out on a journey to discover the ancestral knowledge of ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic tonic made from plants that is known for its cathartic and life-changing powers. He is mentored by an elder shaman who instructs him how to prepare for the experience, and his mother, a master healer.
Ximena is an illiterate woman in her fifties (played by Paulina García who won the Best Actress award in Berlin for her role in Gloria) who has learned to disguise her inability to read or write. Jackeline is a young unemployed elementary school teacher who tries to convince Ximena to take classes with her. Persuading her proves to be an almost impossible task, until one day, Jackeline finds something Ximena has been keeping as her only treasure from childhood: a letter Ximena’s father left when he abandoned her many years before.
How do people survive the terror and heartbreak of life under a brutal dictatorship? This hard-hitting film is a visual collage chronicling General Augusto Pinochet's reign of terror in Chile. The imagery speaks for itself, as the film presents a scathing tableau of military rule. The exclusive film footage comes from the personal archives of a news camera operator who worked in Chile for 17 years. Poignant and subversive, it recounts the brutal atrocities suffered by Chileans, while championing their efforts to regain their freedom.
Ivana Cornejo, divorced three years ago, is just getting used to being single again. After an exasperating call from her ex-husband, she loses her cell phone. Fortunately, the man who finds it calls her to return it, and to her excitement they have an instant rapport. He is León Godoy, a renowned architect with a charming voice and a charismatic personality. They schedule a date so that he can return the cell phone. When León arrives, Ivana is surprised: he is everything she had imagined, except for one unexpected and startling detail...he is only 4'6" tall.
Living Stars is the most recent film by the directors of The Man Next Door (El hombre de al lado), which was the highly popular Opening Night Film at VLAFF 2012.
Chile, 1973. Gonzalo Infante and Pedro Machuca are two eleven-year-old boys living in the capital city of Santiago. Gonzalo comes from a well-to-do family, while Pedro lives in a shantytown on the outskirts of Gonzalo's neighbourhood. Father McEnroe, the principal of St. Patrick’s, enrolls a group of boys from low-income families at the elite private school with the conviction that the students will learn to respect one another.
During the era of the Spanish colonial rule, a settlement of escaped slaves (called palenques) located in the Sierra Maestra in eastern Cuba is the site of an epic story about the struggle for unconditional freedom for the black population. Surrounded by an atmosphere of treachery and war, the black leaders will have to decide whether to strive for a partial freedom that promises a halfway peace, or total equality for their people—a fight that could result in the extermination of their communities.
Navidad is the second feature film by Sebastián Lelio, the award-winning director of Gloria.
Coral Bonelli began life as “Pinolito,” a child actor in the rough-and-tumble film industry of 1970s Mexico. The son of a mariachi and an actress, he was a natural performer—a passion his adoring stage mother, Lilia, soon steered into a winning film career. After the movies gave way to the demanding cabaret circuit, “Pinolito” announced he would henceforth be a woman—surgery and hormone treatments to follow.