The Hanson Film Institute provides and supports learning opportunities, public events, creative projects, and research. As a public service, the Institute sponsors some programs and events that benefit the regional film going and filmmaking community and opens some on-campus programs to the public. (Please see listings for public programs.)
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9th Annual Tucson Cine Mexico
March 27th-30th, 2014
ARIZONA PREMIERE!
THURSDAY, MARCH 27, 7PM – HARKINS THEATRES
Documentary
QUEBRANTO/DISRUPTED
Presented in association with Ambulante, Mexico and the UA Institute for LGBT Studies
México, 2013, 95 min
Director: Roberto Fiesco
Producers: Hugo Espinosa and Ernesto Martínez Arévalo
Cinematographer: Mario Guerrero
Editor: Emiliano Arenales Osorio
In Spanish with English Subtitles
Best LGBT Film, Guadalajara International Film Festival, 2013
Guerrero Press Award, Morelia International Film Festival, 2013
Coral Bonelli was first known as “Pinolito,” a child actor in the 1970s Mexican film industry. The son of a mariachi and an actress, he grew up poor but a natural performer and was steered by his passionate stage mother, Lilia. After working in movies, “Pinolito” performed on the demanding cabaret circuit and then announced that he would become a woman. With her devoted, aging mother by her side, Coral deals with social prejudice and struggles to piece a living together.
Director Roberto Fiesco’s quietly expansive documentary feature debut (gorgeously lensed by Mario Guerrero) is a steadily evolving, revelatory portrait of gender identity, showbiz, and family set against the endemic homophobia—as well as diverse springs of acceptance—in Mexican society. Disrupted evokes a delicate balance in which the wearying task of survival and an indomitable romantic imagination live side-by-side in an often cruel but also unexpectedly generous life. –Robert Avila,Frameline
ARIZONA PREMIERE!
FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 7PM – HARKINS THEATRES
Drama
LA JAULA DE ORO/ THE GOLDEN DREAM
México, 2013, 102 min
Director: Diego Quemada-Diez
Producers: Edher Campos, Inna Payán, and Luis Salinas
Cinematographer: María Secco
Editor: Emiliano Arenales Osorio
In Spanish with English Subtitles
Starring: Brandon López, Rodolfo Domínguez, Karen Martínez, and Carlos Chajon
Official Official Selection Cannes Film Festival 2013 Audience Award
Morelia International Film Festival, 2013
Three teenagers from the slums of Guatemala - tough guy Juan; Sara, who disguises herself as a boy; and Samuel, the smallest and most easily swayed of the trio - undertake the treacherous 1,200-mile trek through Mexico for the United States to find a better life. On their journey they meet Chauk, a Tzotzil Indian from Chiapas who doesn’t speak Spanish and has no official documents. They ride atop dilapidated trains, undergoing an unrelenting, arduous journey in which no one they meet can be trusted and catastrophe waits around every corner. Along the way, the foursome must contend with corrupt cops, ruthless bandits, and a gang of kidnappers. From their journey, director Diego Quemada-Diez fashions a powerful yet unsentimental film filled with action, humor, and intrigue. Constantly upending audience expectations, this unrelentingly tense immigration thriller leaves viewers on the edge of their seats until its shocking ending.
[This] is a very substantial movie, with great compassion and urgency. —Peter Bradshaw, Guardian
ARIZONA PREMIERE!
FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 9PM – HARKINS THEATRES
Drama
HELI
México, 2013, 105 Min
Director: Amat Escalante
Producer: Jaime Romandia
Cinematographer: Lorenzo Hagerman
Editor: Natalia Lopez
In Spanish with English Subtitles
Official Mexican submission to the 86th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
Best Director, Cannes International Film Festival, 2013
Warning: this film contains extreme violence.
Mexico’s selection for the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film, Heli is not for the faint of heart. Factory worker Heli lives a modest life with his father and his sister Estela in rural Mexico. In a misguided attempt to finance his elopement with the 12-year-old Estela, police cadet Beto steals two large packages of cocaine, setting off a string of increasingly bloody, painful, and even fatal consequences. While Heli shocked some Cannes critics for its unflinching portrayal of drug violence, it was awarded the prize for Best Director.
New Wave Mexican style: raw, gritty, and force fed… Creeping paranoia seeps into even the most innocuous moment, so the film functions as clammy thriller as well as poetic agitprop. [Escalante] has shot a damning indictment of contemporary Mexico, capturing its institutionalized corruption, its endemic cruelty. What makes it palatable are the grace notes.... Shut your eyes entirely to its horrors and you’ll really miss out.—Catherine Shoard, Guardian
SATURDAY, MARCH 29, 7:30PM
FOX TUCSON THEATRE
Comedy
NOSOTROS LOS NOBLES/ WE ARE THE NOBLES
IN PERSON: DIRECTOR, GARY ALAZRAKI & ACTOR, GONZALO VEGA
México, 2013, 108 min
Director: Gary Alazraki
Producers: Mark Alazraki, Simón Bross, Móises Chiver, and Raymundo González
Cinematographer: José Casillas
Editor: Jorge Garía
In Spanish with English Subtitles
Starring: Gonzalo Vega, Luis Gerardo Méndez, Karla Souza, and Juan Pablo Gil
#1 Box Office Hit in Mexican History
Successful construction mogul Herman Noble realizes that his children are utterly spoiled. His oldest son, Javier, neglects the family business and engages in ridiculous business ideas. His daughter, Barbara, gets engaged to an older gigolo just to spite her father. His youngest son, Charlie, was expelled from college for having sex with a teacher. Herman decides to teach them a lesson. He stages a company bankruptcy and seizure of all their assets and tricks them into believing they are fugitives from the law. He moves them into their grandfather’s dilapidated home in a poor neighborhood and makes them do something none of them have ever done before… work.
Co-writer/director Gary Alazraki's first feature may sound formulaic… but the performances are genuine and the narrative beats land solidly for a perfectly enjoyable feel-good dramedy.- LA Times
ARIZONA PREMIERE!
SUNDAY, MARCH 30, 2PM – HARKINS THEATRES
Drama
LOS INSOLITOS PECES GATO/THE AMAZING CATFISH
México, 2013, 89 Min
Director: Claudia Sainte-Luce
Producer: Geminiano Pineda
Cinematographer: Agnes Godard
Editor: Santiago Ricci
In Spanish with English Subtitles
FIPRESCI Prize, Toronto International Film Festival, 2013
Official Selection, Morelia International Film Festival, 2013
Claudia, a lonely young woman, works in a supermarket. One night, she ends up in the hospital with a severe case of appendicitis. There, she meets Martha, the woman resting in the bed next to hers. Martha, who lives alone with her four children, gains Claudia’s trust. When she gets out of the hospital, she spontaneously offers Claudia to go home with them. Getting to know this family makes Claudia feel at ease. And for the first time she experiences a sense of belonging in this peculiar little tribe. As Martha’s health weakens every day the bond Claudia has with each member of the family grows stronger. – Toronto Film Festival 2013
Claudia Sainte-Luce shows a precocious, playful and poignant grasp of the fluid nature of family and the capability of the human heart under the most dire conditions for generosity, empathy and tenderness, in her vibrant debut The Amazing Catfish- TFF Jury
SUNDAY, MARCH 30, 4PM
HARKINS THEATRES
Drama
SOMOS MARI PEPA/ WE ARE MARI PEPA
México, 2013, 95 Min
Director: Samuel Kishi
Producer: Toiz Rodríguez
Cinematographer: Octavio Arauz
Editor: Yordi Capó and Carlos Espinoza
In Spanish with English Subtitles
Official Selection, Morelia International Film Festival, 2013
Official Selection, Guanajuato International Film Festival, 2013
Alex has big plans for his summer in Guadalajara. He hopes to get a girlfriend, make money with a new job, learn a new song with his band, Mari Pepa, and win the upcoming ”battle of the bands” concert. His summer expectations quickly become impossible to fulfill as he realizes everything in his life is shifting. Increasingly worried about his deteriorating grandmother, Alex realizes he must learn to deal with loneliness and begin to say goodbye to his innocence. Armed with a full cast of local untrained actors and based on the director/writer’s personal memories, SOMOS MARI PEPA is a love letter to, and a voyage through, the alleys and garages of Atemajac, Jalisco. Establishing director Samuel Kishi Leopo as a new, exciting voice in independent Mexican cinema, the film skillfully and comically captures the breakdown of adolescent rebellion in a period in which boys are forced to become men. - Dilcia Barrera, AFI Fest
ARIZONA PREMIERE!
SUNDAY, MARCH 30, 6PM – HARKINS THEATRES
Comedy
CLUB SANDWICH
México, 2013, 82 min
Director: Fernando Eimbcke
Producers: Jaime Bernardo Ramos, Christian Valdelievre
Cinematographer: María Secco
Editor: Mariana Rodríguez
Starring: Lucio Giménez Cacho, María Renée Prudencio, and Danae Reynaud
In Spanish with English Subtitles
Best Director, San Sebastian Film Festival 2013
Low-key, poignant, and funny, Club Sandwich provides a humorous twist on the adolescent coming-of-age story from a mother's point of view. Thirty-five-year-old single mom Paloma and her fifteen year- old son Hector are vacationing at a deserted, off-season hotel. Oddly close, they spend endless amounts of time together and are more like best friends than mother and son. For Paloma this listless idyll is upset when Hector meets Jazmin, a girl his age. There’s sexual chemistry between the two teenagers, and Hector is ready to take his first tentative steps into the world of teenage sex. Paloma finds herself, slowly but surely, becoming the third wheel. Then there’s the very awkward game of truth or dare.
The director’s deadpan comic style is grounded in a deliciously awkward use of silence and the unspoken, punctuated by occasional exchanges about nothing in particular. In Club Sandwich, Eimbcke uses his precise timing and composition to demonstrate that less can still sometimes be more. - Lincoln Film Society
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