Desaparecidos: New Mexican Documentary Archives - Document Film Festival

Nobody Plays the Trombone Anymore

ralph — Sat, 24 Sep 2016 16:50:37 +0000

Cuberto Ortíz Ramos has been missing since September 26, 2014. Together with 42 other young students, he was kidnapped in the town of Ayotzinapan. In his rural village, his absence is acutely felt by family, friends and the local band in which he played the trombone.

This event is free and unticketed.

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Tempestad

ralph — Sat, 24 Sep 2016 15:52:44 +0000

A profound, emotional journey, Tempestad weaves together the stories of two women enmeshed in a Kafka-esque spiral of corruption and injustice. The film is a meditation on the notion of “impunidad,” the impunity or unaccountability of those in power, whether the Mexican government or the country’s dense network of drug cartels. Tatiana Huezo’s poetic rendering of Mexico’s invisible war is a work of tremendous cinematic force, reminiscent of the work of Chantal Akerman, touching as it does on the power of familial bonds and the legacy of trauma; a film steeped in loss and pain, but also love, dignity and resistance.

Tempestad will be introduced by artist and filmmaker Carla Novi.

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Closing Gala: Plaza de la Soledad

ralph — Sat, 24 Sep 2016 14:53:18 +0000

Seventeen years ago, multiple award-winning photographer Maya Goded started a photo book about the prostitutes of La Merced, a district of Mexico City. She became close friends with Carmen and Letty, a relationship that would bloom into her first feature film project.

Shot over a period of four years, Plaza de la Soledad follows a wider family of women negotiating the darkness of their pasts and the precariousness of their future on the unforgiving streets. The film is one of great warmth and humour despite the violence that permeates their lives. They overflow with the energy and bravado of youth and, as they have grown older together, they have learned how to give each other the strength to continue. Premiered at the renowned Sundance Film Festival, the film is a masterful portrait of extraordinary people and a powerful case for female autonomy.

“My intention has always been to encourage viewers to confront their own prejudices about prostitution, sex and ageing, to reflect on the complexity and the different forms that love – and loneliness – can assume.” Maya Goded.

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Opening Gala: Kings of Nowhere

ralph — Sat, 24 Sep 2016 14:48:09 +0000

We open this year’s festival with a haunting and lyrical gem from Mexican director Betzabé García.

The construction of a dam turned the Mexican village of San Marcos into a waterlogged ghost town, but three families refuse to surrender their home to the flood. Even the constant, lurking threat of armed gangs roving the countryside and the loneliness of living amid ruins can’t deter them from their routines. They keep the tortillería open, weed the pavement in the town square, and rove the inundated streets in boats or on horseback. García’s observational approach brings out the humour and eerie beauty of their singular situation.

As protagonist Pani remarks, “In life there are no handles…we are floating in the universe.” Kings of Nowhere is the story of how a town of 300 families became three and how ordinary people survive and respond to the rising tide of fear.

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