MADRID EXPERIMENTAL FILM WEEK
The audiovisual avant-garde in a different, necessary cultural exhibition
Date
19
25 November 2011
Price
€3
Institution
Cineteca Madrid
What began, very much in line with its content, as a risky but tempting experiment, came of age some time ago. That means it has been through successive moments of inspiration, despair, triumph, decay and hope. The desire of film-makers to evolve raises problems and aspirations which go to make up our week. A different, necessary cultural exhibition; an event with a modest budget created to bring together approaches and innovations in the language of film. All the films are shown in original version with subtitles in Spanish.
PROGRAMME
>Saturday 19
7pm Oh Saigon, Doan Hoang / 58´ / 2007 / US. English and Vietnamese OV with subtitles in Spanish
A dramatic portrait of the last family of Vietnamese refugees evacuated from Saigon by helicopter at the end of the Vietnam war in 1975. After twenty-five years exiled in the United States, they return to Vietnam, where the father is reunited with his brother, who he fought against in the war, and a daughter confronts her mother for abandoning her during the fall of Saigon. An intimate, fascinating portrait showing the consequences of decisions made in fractions of a second and the final reconciliation of a family divided long ago by war. The director will be present.
9.30pm Made in L.A., Almudena Carracedo / 70´ / 2009 / US. English and Spanish OV with subtitles in Spanish.
Made in LA documents the extraordinary history of three Latin immigrants, seamstresses in exploitative workshops in Los Angeles, who embark on a three-year odyssey to get a famous clothing store to comply with basic employment rights. With a direct, intimist style, Made in LA reveals the impact of this struggle on the lives of each of them as the experience transforms them. Moving, sympathetic and deeply human.
Made in LA is a story about immigration, the power of unity and the courage needed to find your own voice.
> Sunday 20.
7pm Welcome to Shelbyville, Kim A. Snyder / 67´/ 2010 US. English OV with subtitles in Spanish.
Welcome to Shelbyville is a vision of the United States at a crossroads. In the context of the eve of the 2008 presidential elections, in a small town in the heart of the United States a community confronts demographic change. The Afro-American and white residents have the challenge of integrating with a growing Hispanic population and hundreds of Muslim Somalian refugees who have recently arrived. The director will be present.
9.30pm Oh Saigon, by Doan Hoag (see details above).
> Wednesday 23
7pm The Order of Myths, Margaret Brown / 80´ / 2008 / US. English OV with subtitles in Spanish.
Documentary about Mardi Gras in Mobile (Alabama). American Mardi Gras was born in Mobile in 1703. In 2007 it continues to be celebrated in a racially segregated way. The director, born in Mobile, introduces us into the parallel hearts of the city’s two carnivals to explore the complex contours of this sacred tradition and the elusive forces that keep it the way it is.
9 pm Project Kashmir, Senain Kheshgi / 58´/ 2009 / US. English OV with subtitles in Spanish.
Project Kashmir is a documentary whose directors – two American friends, a Muslim of Pakistani origin and a Hindu of Indian origin – investigate the war in Kashmir and see their friendship put to the test by deeply-rooted political, cultural and religious prejudices they had never had to confront in the United States.
> Thursday 24
7pm Which Way Home?, Rebecca Cammisa / 94´ / 2010 /US. English OV with subtitles in Spanish.
Which Way Home? follows various unaccompanied Latin immigrant children on their journey through Mexico to reach the United States on a freight train they call “La Bestia” (The Beast). Over six years, the director follows the trail of Olga and Freddy, nine-year-old Hondurans trying to find their families in Minnesota; José, a ten-year-old from El Salvador who has been abandoned by traffickers and who ends up alone in a detention centre in Mexico, and Kevin, a fourteen-year-old Honduran whose mother hopes to reach New York and send money to her family. They are stories of hope and courage, disappointment and pain, about the people who are never talked about: the invisible ones.
9 pm No subtitles necessary: Laszlo & Vilmos, James Chressanthis / 90´ / 2010 / US. English OV
No subtitles necessary(: Laszlo & Vilmos) to tell the amazing story of two young political refugees from Communist Hungary who arrived in the United States at the beginning of 1957 with the dream of becoming Hollywood film-makers. They did not speak English and were rejected as foreigners, but they never gave in, gradually overcoming apparently impossible adversities to become two of the most successful and influential directors of photography in the history of the film industry. A story of friendship going beyond years and nations.
> Friday 25
7pm Strangers No More, Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon / 60´ / 2010 / US. English OV with subtitles in Spanish.
The story of an exceptional school in Tel Aviv where children come from all over the world fleeing adverse conditions in their own countries. In this school they learn to live together and adapt to a new environment. In time they discover they are not alone.
9 pm We Still Live Here, Anne Makepeace / 82´ / 2011 / US. English and Wampanoag OV with subtitles in Spanish.
The Wampanoag nation, in the south-east of Massachusetts, helped the first white settlers to survive but, in time, it lost its own culture. We Still Live Here tells the story of the recovery of the language of the Wampanoag Indians, which was not spoken by a single living person, thanks to the work of the linguist Jessie “Little Doe” Baird. Now the Wampanoags are teaching their language and culture to new generations. A reflection on the struggle between assimilation and the preservation of tradition and history and an example of how the Americans are at the forefront of heritage conservation.
PROGRAMME
>Saturday 19
7pm Oh Saigon, Doan Hoang / 58´ / 2007 / US. English and Vietnamese OV with subtitles in Spanish
A dramatic portrait of the last family of Vietnamese refugees evacuated from Saigon by helicopter at the end of the Vietnam war in 1975. After twenty-five years exiled in the United States, they return to Vietnam, where the father is reunited with his brother, who he fought against in the war, and a daughter confronts her mother for abandoning her during the fall of Saigon. An intimate, fascinating portrait showing the consequences of decisions made in fractions of a second and the final reconciliation of a family divided long ago by war. The director will be present.
9.30pm Made in L.A., Almudena Carracedo / 70´ / 2009 / US. English and Spanish OV with subtitles in Spanish.
Made in LA documents the extraordinary history of three Latin immigrants, seamstresses in exploitative workshops in Los Angeles, who embark on a three-year odyssey to get a famous clothing store to comply with basic employment rights. With a direct, intimist style, Made in LA reveals the impact of this struggle on the lives of each of them as the experience transforms them. Moving, sympathetic and deeply human.
Made in LA is a story about immigration, the power of unity and the courage needed to find your own voice.
> Sunday 20.
7pm Welcome to Shelbyville, Kim A. Snyder / 67´/ 2010 US. English OV with subtitles in Spanish.
Welcome to Shelbyville is a vision of the United States at a crossroads. In the context of the eve of the 2008 presidential elections, in a small town in the heart of the United States a community confronts demographic change. The Afro-American and white residents have the challenge of integrating with a growing Hispanic population and hundreds of Muslim Somalian refugees who have recently arrived. The director will be present.
9.30pm Oh Saigon, by Doan Hoag (see details above).
> Wednesday 23
7pm The Order of Myths, Margaret Brown / 80´ / 2008 / US. English OV with subtitles in Spanish.
Documentary about Mardi Gras in Mobile (Alabama). American Mardi Gras was born in Mobile in 1703. In 2007 it continues to be celebrated in a racially segregated way. The director, born in Mobile, introduces us into the parallel hearts of the city’s two carnivals to explore the complex contours of this sacred tradition and the elusive forces that keep it the way it is.
9 pm Project Kashmir, Senain Kheshgi / 58´/ 2009 / US. English OV with subtitles in Spanish.
Project Kashmir is a documentary whose directors – two American friends, a Muslim of Pakistani origin and a Hindu of Indian origin – investigate the war in Kashmir and see their friendship put to the test by deeply-rooted political, cultural and religious prejudices they had never had to confront in the United States.
> Thursday 24
7pm Which Way Home?, Rebecca Cammisa / 94´ / 2010 /US. English OV with subtitles in Spanish.
Which Way Home? follows various unaccompanied Latin immigrant children on their journey through Mexico to reach the United States on a freight train they call “La Bestia” (The Beast). Over six years, the director follows the trail of Olga and Freddy, nine-year-old Hondurans trying to find their families in Minnesota; José, a ten-year-old from El Salvador who has been abandoned by traffickers and who ends up alone in a detention centre in Mexico, and Kevin, a fourteen-year-old Honduran whose mother hopes to reach New York and send money to her family. They are stories of hope and courage, disappointment and pain, about the people who are never talked about: the invisible ones.
9 pm No subtitles necessary: Laszlo & Vilmos, James Chressanthis / 90´ / 2010 / US. English OV
No subtitles necessary(: Laszlo & Vilmos) to tell the amazing story of two young political refugees from Communist Hungary who arrived in the United States at the beginning of 1957 with the dream of becoming Hollywood film-makers. They did not speak English and were rejected as foreigners, but they never gave in, gradually overcoming apparently impossible adversities to become two of the most successful and influential directors of photography in the history of the film industry. A story of friendship going beyond years and nations.
> Friday 25
7pm Strangers No More, Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon / 60´ / 2010 / US. English OV with subtitles in Spanish.
The story of an exceptional school in Tel Aviv where children come from all over the world fleeing adverse conditions in their own countries. In this school they learn to live together and adapt to a new environment. In time they discover they are not alone.
9 pm We Still Live Here, Anne Makepeace / 82´ / 2011 / US. English and Wampanoag OV with subtitles in Spanish.
The Wampanoag nation, in the south-east of Massachusetts, helped the first white settlers to survive but, in time, it lost its own culture. We Still Live Here tells the story of the recovery of the language of the Wampanoag Indians, which was not spoken by a single living person, thanks to the work of the linguist Jessie “Little Doe” Baird. Now the Wampanoags are teaching their language and culture to new generations. A reflection on the struggle between assimilation and the preservation of tradition and history and an example of how the Americans are at the forefront of heritage conservation.