Deep in the sun-blistered Sonora desert beneath a cicada tree, border police discover a decomposing male body. Lifting a tattered T-shirt, they expose a tattoo that reads “Dayani Cristal.” Who is this person? What brought him here? And who–or–what is Dayani Cristal? Following a team of dedicated staff from the Pima County Morgue in Arizona, director Marc Silver seeks to answer these questions and return an identity to this anonymous person.
Alejandro Jodorowsky’s first movie in 23 years is a full-throttle return to form for the mad maestro of El Topo and The Holy Mountain, now an octogenarian. A semi-autobiographical, semi-fantasized coming-of-age tale reminiscent of Fellini’s Amarcord, the film is set in 1930s Chile, where a little boy named Alejandro grows up, unhappily, under a stern, domineering father and a statuesque, operatically-emotive mother. The Dance of Reality may be Jodorowsky’s most coherent, grounded, and personal film ever.
Alejandro Jodorowsky’s first movie in 23 years is a full-throttle return to form for the mad maestro of El Topo and The Holy Mountain, now an octogenarian. A semi-autobiographical, semi-fantasized coming-of-age tale reminiscent of Fellini’s Amarcord, the film is set in 1930s Chile, where a little boy named Alejandro grows up, unhappily, under a stern, domineering father and a statuesque, operatically-emotive mother. The Dance of Reality may be Jodorowsky’s most coherent, grounded, and personal film ever.
Using as a starting point a 1911 ethnographic film by Swedish explorer Erland Nordenskiöld, a Bolivian filmmaker and a Guaraní guide travel together through the forests of southeastern Bolivia with the intention of making a film about the Guaraní people. Each man creates and interprets his own character, walking the thin line between documentary, fiction and performance. The journey not only takes them to the interior of the country but to their own inner selves, as they seek to define their identities within a country undergoing enormous social, political and historical change.
Alex, a 16-year-old teenager who lives with his grandmother in Guadalajara, has various plans for the summer: writing a new song with his punk rock band, finding a job and having his first sexual experience. He has also become aware that his grandmother is starting to become increasingly dependent on him. As summer draws on, Alex realizes that things are going to change forever and that he will have to grow up and learn to say goodbye.
Celebrating the literary legacy and love of cinema of Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez, the Consulate General of Colombia in Vancouver and the Vancouver Latin American Film Festival are proud to present No One Writes to the Colonel, a film which many consider to be the finest cinematic adaptation of a García Márquez novel.
Tijuana is a city of walls, both visible and invisible. Lidia works as a housekeeper for a wealthy woman whose only concern is for her prize pooch Princess. Rafael works as a janitor in a light bulb factory. A meagre retirement looms menacingly in front of each of them. Silently and surreptitiously, they begin a battle: Rafael against a company that seeks to deny him his due and Lidia against the whim of an employer who places a dog’s well-being above her own. A carefully paced, darkly comic and intricately woven story that is both mesmerizing and quietly devastating.
The Naked Room shows a whole world without leaving a single space: the examination room in the psychiatric wing of a Mexico City children’s hospital. Here the traumas and nightmares of a generation of Mexican youth are revealed in all their painful reality. The youth suffer from issues including severe depression, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder from assault and more. Many of the children in the film pose a danger to themselves or others; and the care they receive in this office may be their last hope.
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.
The Palace follows the everyday life of seventeen women who live together in Mexico, sharing a large house for both emotional and financial reasons. They help each other train for various jobs as nannies, domestic workers and private nurses for elderly patients. Intimate and observational, the film is beautifully shot in a palette of muted blues and greys. Its pace reflects the pace of these women’s lives, vacillating between tedium and profundity. The Palace is an important addition to the oeuvre of one of Canada and Mexico’s most prolific avant-garde filmmakers.
