Re-imagining Yucatán in the Work of Pedro González Rubio

By Paulina Suárez

Alamar, 2009

Pedro González-Rubio’s Alamar (2009) is his second feature film set in the Yucatán Peninsula. Alamar invokes different formats and genres of visual culture –the nature documentary, the home movie, the family album, and the picture book—to create a new form that is dedicated to the patient unraveling of a simple plot, and to registering the lyrical possibilities of the physical world. The documentary Toro Negro (Black Bull, 2005), also a family portrait, co-directed with Carlos Armella, tracks the life of Fernando Pacheco, a death-driven young bullfighter from Valladolid, Yucatán.

Both Alamar and Toro Negro breathe new life into the stale visual repertoire of this geographic region, which has been mostly used as the backdrop for tourist videos, spring-breaker snapshots, and popular television adventure and travel shows. Seen almost exclusively from an exoticizing perspective, the Yucatán Peninsula has been framed as a recreation area –where the fantasy of discovery and exploration can be mapped out on to its landscape—or, alternately, as a place of ethnographic, archeological, and natural wonder. The dominant representative mode –aligned with the broader project of tourism development that has caused ecological devastation—has effaced the visual specificity of the region, dispossessed its communities of the possibility to articulate a local history and sense of time, and privileged generic spectacle over personal narratives.

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Paulina Suárez is PhD candidate in Cinema Studies at NYU. She has an MA from the University of Chicago, and a BA in Literature from UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México).


Alamar is currently playing at Film Forum in New York City through Tuesday, August 3rd and at the San Francisco Film Society in California through Thursday, August 5th. Click here for other upcoming theatrical engagements of the film around the country.

Indocumentales Screening of WHICH WAY HOME at Americas Society

Rebecca Cammisa's Academy-Award nominated documentary Which Way Home was screened last night to a full house at the Americas Society as part of the 'Indocumentales / Undocumentaries' series organized by what moves you?, Cinema Tropical and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at NYU in collaboration with the Mexican Cultural Institute of New York. The screening was followed by a panel discussion with the director, along with special guests Jorge Pinto, founder of Pinto Books and former Consul General of Mexico in New York and journalist Virginia Alvarado. The conversation was moderated by Shamina de Gonzaga from what moves you?

The panelists agreed that the immigration debate should go beyond the policy issues to include the economic, social and human aspects. The director mentioned that they've been actively promoting the film on both sides of the border as an advocacy tool and mentioned that Mexican first lady Margarita Zavala had personally handed a copy of her film to Michelle Obama in one of her recent meetings. "We're just waiting for them to do something about it", she added. 

Pictured (from left to right): Jorge Pinto, Virginia Alvarado, filmmaker Rebecca Cammisa and Shamina de Gonzaga.

Carlos Diegues: "I'm a Frustrated Musician"

Acclaimed Brazilian filmmaker Carlos "Cacá" Diegues participated in a special edition of Cinema Tropical's TropiChat series at the Americas Society last Monday. The program was part of the activities of this year's edition of the Premiere Brazil! festival organized by The Museum of Modern Art in conjunction with the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival.

Responding a question in regards to the prominent role that music plays in his films, Diegues said that he loves music and that he is perhaps a frustrated musician. The Brazilian director talked about his film career, his involvement in the influential Cinema Novo movement, his most recent projects, as well as the important role that Brazilian culture plays in his work. "Brazil is a mistery for me", Diegues said, "and I make films about things that I don't understand", he concluded.

The conversation, which was moderated by film programmer Fabiano Canosa, also included the special participation of Brazilian actress Zezé Motta, who's worked with Diegues on five featured films. Motta said that her starring role in Diegues feature film Xica da Silva was one of the most important things that have happened in her life: "My life is before and after Xica." A new subtitled 35mm print of this classic film will be screened tomorrow Friday, July 23 at the Museum of Modern Art as part of the Brazilian festival.

Pictured: Actress Zezé Motta and filmmaker Carlos Diegues. Photo by Arturo Sánchez.

The Controversy Behind the NY Latino Film Festival's Trailer

The New York International Latino Film Festival has stirred up controversy on the release of this year's commercial spot. Directed by British filmmaker Tony Kaye, written by Margarita Jimeno and produced by advertising agency GlobalHue Latin, the 60-second spot features a female director trying to direct her grandmother for a video shoot. The spot was the winner of the "'Watch Yourself' TV Commercial Contest," which call for submission for scripts for the festival's 2010 commercial.  Journalist Maria Nieto on a editorial piece published by New York's El Diario La Prensa entitled "The Not-so-Latino Film Festival" criticizes the festival's clip on their depiction of Latinos and urges the festival's directors to empower Latino filmmakers "in their pursuit of furthering authentic portrayals of Latino identity."

The 11th edition of the festival runs July 27 at August 1 at the SVA Theater and the Clearview Chelsea Cinemas. For the complete lineup and more information click here.

Click here to watch the video. 

Premiere Brazil! 2010 Opening Night Screening and Party

The opening screening for the eight edition of the annual festival Premiere Brazil! organized in conjunction by The Museum of Modern Art and the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival was held last night with the New York premiere of the British-Brazilian co-production Waste Land / Lixo Extraordinário by Lucy Walker, co-directed by João Jardim and Karen Harley. The screening was followed by a party at Izhar Patkin's house in the East Village which was attended by the filmmakers and special guests such as musicians Moby (who composed the music for the documentary), Bebel Gilberto and David Byrne.
The festival runs through July 29 at MoMA.

Click here to see more pictures of the event in Cinema Tropical's Facebook page.

Pictured: Director Lucy Walker (left) and Ilda Santiago, Director of the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival.

PBS' POV to Broadcast Mexican Docs EL GENERAL and PRESUMED GUILTY

Award-winning Mexican documentaries El General (pictured) by Natalia Almada and Presumed Guilty / Presunto culpable by Roberto Hernández, Layda Negrete and Geoffrey Smith, will have their U.S. broadcast premiere this month as part of PBS' acclaimed documentary series POV. It's the first time the prestigious American public television series features two Mexican productions as part of their regular season.

Natalia Almada's El General, Winner of the US Directing Award for documentary at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, is a personal film essay on the filmmaker's great-grandfather, the controversial politician Plutarco Elías Calles who became president of Mexico in 1924. Using archival and original footage, the film is a meditation on the complex legacy of her great-grandfather and its weight on the country today, on the 100th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution. Presumed Guilty / Presunto culpable, on the other hand is a gripping account of Antonio Zúñiga's case, a young man who was wrongly accused of a murder he didn't commit. With unprecedented access to jails and courts, the filmmakers unmask the corruption of the Mexican penal system, where one is guilty until proven innocent.


El General premieres this Tuesday, July 20 at 10pm EST, and Presumed Guilty on Tuesday, July 27 also at 10pm EST. Click here for local listings.