Tulane University

Latin American Cinema Series

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In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, the Stone Center for Latin American Studies is collaborating with The Broad Theater to present the 1st Annual Latin America Cinema Series. The series will showcase a wide variety of shorts and features from Haiti, Cuba, Argentina, Guatemala, Peru, Mexico and Colombia. Titles include such film festival standouts such as THE APOSTATE, Martin Sheen’s latest film THE VESSEL, and IXCANUL, the first Guatemalan film shot in the Kaqchikel Maya language. The series will take place over two days, October 1st and 2nd, at The Broad Theater, 636 North Broad, New Orleans.

This film series is presented in partnership with WWNO and the Cine Institute in Jacmel, Haiti. All proceeds from the Haitian series will go to Cine Institute.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1

• 12:30 pm – Haitian Shorts (100 mins.) A selection of Haitian narrative shorts will be screened as part of a partnership with the Cine Institute in Jacmel, Haiti.

• 2:45 pm – Tierra y Sombra (97 mins.) Colombia. Alfonso is an old farmer who has returned home to tend to his son, who is gravely ill. He rediscovers his old house, where the woman who was once his wife still lives, with his daughter-in-law and grandson. The landscape that awaits him resembles a wasteland. Vast sugar cane plantations surround the house, producing perpetual clouds of ash. 17 years after abandoning them, Alfonso tries to fit back in and save his family.

• 5:00 pm – Ixcanul (100 mins.) Guatemala. On the slopes of an active volcano in Guatemala, a marriage is arranged for 17-year-old Maria by her Kaqchikel parents. “Ixcanul” provides a window into a culture that we rarely see. Film will be presented with a special introduction by Professor Judith Maxwell and Kaqchikel Maya language Scholar, Ixnal Cuma Chávez. The Latin American Resource Center- welcomes all educators to a special reception preceding the screening. Reception is free with registration. For more information about this special reception, please register here.

• 7:10 pm – The Vessel (110 mins.) United States. Ten years after a tidal wave destroys a small-town elementary school with all the children inside, a young man builds a mysterious structure out of the school’s remains, setting the town aflame with passions long forgotten.

• 9:15 pm – Embrace of the Serpent (133 mins.) Colombia/Venezuela/Argentina. The story of the relationship between Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman and last survivor of his people, and two scientists who work together over the course of 40 years to search the Amazon for a sacred healing plant.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2016

• 12:00 pm Ixcanul (100 mins.) Guatemala.

• 2:15 pm The Vessel (110 mins.) United States.

• 4:30 pm Unfinished Spaces (86 mins.) Cuba. Cuba’s ambitious National Art Schools project, designed by three young artists in the wake of Castro’s Revolution, is neglected, nearly forgotten, then ultimately rediscovered as a visionary architectural masterpiece. In 1961, three young, visionary architects were commissioned by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara to create Cuba’s National Art Schools on the grounds of a former golf course in Havana, Cuba. Construction of their radical designs began immediately and the school’s first classes soon followed. Dancers, musicians and artists from all over the country reveled in the beauty of the schools, but as the dream of the Revolution quickly became a reality, construction was abruptly halted and the architects and their designs were deemed irrelevant in the prevailing political climate. Forty years later the schools are in use, but remain unfinished and decaying. Castro has invited the exiled architects back to finish their unrealized dream. Unfinished Spaces features intimate footage of Fidel Castro, showing his devotion to creating a worldwide showcase for art, and it also documents the struggle and passion of three revolutionary artists.

• 7:00 pm Tierra y Sombra (97 mins.) Colombia.

• 9:00 pm The Apostate (80 mins.) Uruguay/Spain. A man at a crossroads in his life (Alvaro Ogalla) wishes to fully excommunicate himself from the Catholic Church, but is faced with baffling bureaucracy from his decision in this absurd comedy-drama from director Federico Veiroj.

More information can be found at thebroadtheater.com, in the Events section. Tickets for the series will go on sale Friday, September 23rd. Tickets for each screening will be $10 with a two-day pass available for $40. For more information please contact the theater at mgmt@thebroadtheater.com or 504-218-1008.