For just over 15 years, Ibermedia has been instrumental in the continued ascent of Latin American, Spanish, and Portuguese filmmaking. The intergovernmental Ibermedia organization began with seven member countries; today films from over 20 member countries appear on festival schedules and in cinemas the world over.
Ibermedia facilitates and finances co-productions of documentaries and fiction films between its Spanish- and Portuguese-language member countries, and grants money for international distribution and promotion. Professional film organizations from the country sponsoring the proposal select the projects to be helped by the Ibermedia umbrella organization, thus ensuring each project’s autonomy. To date, Ibermedia has supported over 600 films and provided training for filmmaking professionals
’s fourth biannual Ibermedia program is particularly rich, with a number of films that have U.S. distribution and/or a healthy festival run behind them, and a treasure trove of films by filmmakers who seldom get the opportunity to show their work in the U.S. Mercedes Moncada Rodríques’s stunning, heartbreaking Magic Words (Breaking a Spell), which opens the festival with a weeklong run, is perhaps her most accomplished yet.
Films by promising new talents from , Cuba, and , among others, appear alongside work by seasoned filmmakers like Lúcia Murat, capturing a stirring picture of the state of the medium today, in all its variety and splendor. Several filmmakers will be present to introduce their films, and on May 3 a special screening and round-table discussion takes place at ’s King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center in conjunction withthe exhibition. All films are in Spanish with English subtitles, unless otherwise noted.
Screening Schedule
Thursday, May 1
7:00 Palabras mágicas (Para romper un entendimiento) (Magic Words [Breaking a Spell]). 2012. Mexico/Guatemala. Written and directed by Mercedes Moncada Rodríguez. In the vein of Chris Marker’s finest essay films, Mercedes Moncada’s Magic Words is both sweeping and deeply personal, exploring 40 years of Nicaraguan history with a voice that is equally erudite, poetic, and indignant. Tracing the fraught Sandinista revolution throughout the 1980s and its aftermath, Moncada examines the impact of grand ideologies, politics, and lingering memories on communities and individuals, in many ways still left raw and reeling. To echo a quote from Marker’s Sans Soleil, Moncada seems to demand: “Who says that time heals all wounds?” 82 min. Introduced by Moncada.
Friday, May 2
4:00 El Mudo (The Mute). 2013. Peru/Mexico. Written and directed by Daniel Vega Vidal, Diego Vega Vidal. With Fernando Bacilio, Lidia Rodríguez, Juan Luis Maldonado. Judge Constantino Zegarra has earned his name as an incorruptible stalwart with an impressive conviction rate. Impervious to sob stories and appeals, he has also earned many enemies, any one of whom could be behind a conspiracy that leaves him demoted and—after a bullet strikes him in the neck—mute. Smart and shrewd (a kind of black comedy version of Michael Haneke’s Caché), The Mute is an exciting and exceedingly fresh take on the political thriller. 90 min.
7:00 Palabras mágicas (Para romper un entendimiento) (Magic Words [Breaking a Spell]). 2012. Mexico/Guatemala. Written and directed by Mercedes Moncada Rodríguez. 82 min.
Saturday, May 3
1:30 Palabras mágicas (Para romper un entendimiento) (Magic Words [Breaking a Spell]). 2012. Mexico/Guatemala. Written and directed by Mercedes Moncada Rodríguez. 82 min.
4:00 Yvy Maraey: Tierra sin mal (Yvy Maraey: Land without Evil). 2013. Bolivia/Mexico. Written and directed by Juan Carlos Valdivia. Based on a story by Valdivia, Elio Ortíz. With Valdivia, Ortíz. A well-off metropolitan filmmaker hoping to retrace the trail of an early Swedish documentarian travels to the Bolivian highlands in search of savages. Once there, however, he finds his privileged cultural position met with ire more often than awe. Including allusions to documentary classics like Nanook of the North, Valdivia’s film moves beyond the plot itself to probe larger questions of memory, the politics of representation, and the power of cinema, all with sophistication and grace. 107 min. Valdivia present. NYU King Juan Carlos I Center, 53 Washington Square South.
Sunday, May 4
2:00 Palabras mágicas (Para romper un entendimiento) (Magic Words [Breaking a Spell]). 2012. Mexico/Guatemala. Written and directed by Mercedes Moncada Rodríguez. 82 min.
5:00 Yvy Maraey: Tierra sin mal (Yvy Maraey: Land without Evil). 2013. Bolivia/Mexico. Written and directed by Juan Carlos Valdivia. Based on a story by Valdivia, Elio Ortíz. With Valdivia, Ortíz. 107 min. Valdivia present.
Monday, May 5
4:00 Palabras mágicas (Para romper un entendimiento) (Magic Words [Breaking a Spell]). 2012. Mexico/Guatemala. Written and directed by Mercedes Moncada Rodríguez. 82 min.
Tuesday, May 6
4:00 No. 2012. Chile/Mexico. Directed by Pablo Larraín. Screenplay by Pedro Peirano, based on the play by Antonio Skármeta. With Gael García Bernal, Alfredo Castro, Antonia Zegers. Set during the 1988 Chilean referendum challenging the rule of President Augusto Pinochet, the fast-moving, entertaining (and Oscar-nominated) No concludes Pablo Larraín’s unofficial trilogy of films detailing life under the former dictator. Gael García Bernal plays René, a bright young ad man enlisted to boost the “No” campaign. To recreate the feel of the era (and seamlessly integrate actual ads and television reports), Larraín shot the film on U-matic magnetic tape. 118 min.
7:00 Palabras mágicas (Para romper un entendimiento) (Magic Words [Breaking a Spell]). 2012. Mexico/Guatemala. Written and directed by Mercedes Moncada Rodríguez. 82 min.
Wednesday, May 7
4:00 Palabras mágicas (Para romper un entendimiento) (Magic Words [Breaking a Spell]). 2012. Mexico/Guatemala. Written and directed by Mercedes Moncada Rodríguez. 82 min.
7:00 A Memória que me contam (Memories They Told Me). 2013. Brazil/Chile. Directed by Lúcia Murat. Screenplay by Murat, Tatiana Salem Levy. With Franco Nero, Irene Ravache, Simone Spoladore. Though the film is set in present-day Brazil, the past hangs palpably over Memories They Told Me. With their friend and former comrade Ana on her deathbed, a group of aging revolutionaries are reunited and forced to grapple with their former accomplishments, failures, and lingering resentments. Wary of self-aggrandizing nostalgia or romanticism, Murat offers an honest, complicated look at youthful idealism and the often uneasy overlap between the personal and the political. In Portuguese; English subtitles. 95 min.
Thursday, May 8
4:00 La Jaula de oro (The Golden Dream). 2013. Mexico/Spain. Directed by Diego Quemada-Diez. Screenplay by Quemada-Diez, Lucia Carreras, Gibrán Portela. With Brandon López, Rodolfo Domínguez, Karen Martínez. One of the most promising debut features in years and winner of the Un Certain Regard award at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, The Golden Dream is an assured and impressive addition to a time-honored cinematic tradition of tracing the arduous journey from Central America to “el norte.” Drawn from hundreds of real-life interviews the director conducted with past immigrants, the film balances a vital and unflinching urgency with moments of tranquil lyricism. 102 min.
7:00 El Mudo (The Mute). 2013. Peru/Mexico. Written and directed by Daniel Vega Vidal, Diego Vega Vidal. With Fernando Bacilio, Lidia Rodríguez, Juan Luis Maldonado. 90 min.
Friday, May 9
4:00 La Demora (The Delay). 2012. Uruguay/Mexico. Directed by Rodrigo Plá. Screenplay by Laura Santullo. With Roxana Blanco, Néstor Guzzini, Carlos Vallarino. Forced to care for her increasingly dependent father and three children between shifts at the local textile factory, María feels the world closing in. Unable to afford professional care or secure help, she makes a rash and desperate decision as a means of escape. With an impeccable sense of detail in every shot—whether emphasizing wide-angle symmetry or tight, claustrophobic framing—The Delay is a testament to cinematic restraint and efficiency, eschewing fanfare for a lean and assured austerity. 35mm. 84 min.
7:00 No. 2012. Chile/Mexico. Directed by Pablo Larraín. Screenplay by Pedro Peirano, based on the play by Antonio Skármeta. With Gael García Bernal, Alfredo Castro, Antonia Zegers.
Saturday, May 10
4:00 Yvy Maraey: Tierra sin mal (Yvy Maraey: Land without Evil). 2013. Bolivia/Mexico. Written and directed by Juan Carlos Valdivia. Based on a story by Valdivia, Elio Ortíz. With Valdivia, Ortíz. 107 min.
7:30 La Sirga (The Towrope). 2012. Colombia/Mexico. Written and directed by William Vega. With Floralba Achicanoy, Joghis Seudin Arias. As the distraught Alicia arrives at her uncle’s cabin in the Colombian Andes, having escaped a war that left her home village decimated, she attempts to rebuild her life while grappling with lingering fears. With emphasis on sound and visual poetics over dialogue—recalling the hazy, languid worlds of 1970s Andrei Tarkovsky—Vega evocatively details the anxiety of negotiating an unfamiliar environment, even one where beautiful scenery still hints at a hidden menace. 88 min.
Sunday, May 11
2:00 Melaza (Molasses). 2012. Cuba/Panama. Written and directed by Carlos Lechuga. With Yuliet Cruz, Armando Miguel Gómez, Luis Antonio Gotti. With the closure of their town’s sugar mill, a young couple, Aldo and Monica, are pushed to the point of desperation as they struggle to preserve their personal passions and principles. While these are potentially the makings of an overwrought drama, director Carlos Lechuga deftly defies the film’s title and delivers a work this is neither sickly sweet nor exceedingly dark. With acutely drawn characters, a subtle wit, and an understated style that never sacrifices humanism for the cerebral, Molasses heralds the arrival of a distinct new voice in world cinema. 80 min.
5:00 A Memória que me contam (Memories They Told Me). 2013. Brazil/Chile. Directed by Lúcia Murat. Screenplay by Murat, Tatiana Salem Levy. With Franco Nero, Irene Ravache, Simone Spoladore. In Portuguese; English subtitles. 95 min.
Monday, May 12
4:00 La Sirga (The Towrope). 2012. Colombia/Mexico. Written and directed by William Vega. With Floralba Achicanoy, Joghis Seudin Arias. 88 min.
7:00 La Jaula de oro (The Golden Dream). 2013. Mexico/Spain. Directed by Diego Quemada-Diez. Screenplay by Quemada-Diez, Lucia Carreras, Gibrán Portela. With Brandon López, Rodolfo Domínguez, Karen Martínez. 102 min.
Wednesday, May 14
4:00 Melaza (Molasses). 2012. Cuba/Panama. Written and directed by Carlos Lechuga. With Yuliet Cruz, Armando Miguel Gómez, Luis Antonio Gotti. 80 min.
7:00 La Demora (The Delay). 2012. Uruguay/Mexico. Directed by Rodrigo Plá. Screenplay by Laura Santullo. With Roxana Blanco, Néstor Guzzini, Carlos Vallarino. 35mm. 84 min.