The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo La misteriosa mirada del flamenco
Synopsis
The Chilean desert, 1982. It is rumored that a single loving gaze between two men is how the plague spreads—an illness both mysterious and lethal that is tearing through a remote mining town. At the center of the paranoia is a community on the margins: a home where eleven-year-old Lidia grows up among a fierce and loving queer family. As fear and violence begin to spread even faster than the plague, Lidia sets out to find the truth about this mythical epidemic to protect her beloved kin.
With sensuous magical realism and poetic tenderness set against the harsh desert backdrop, director Diego Céspedes draws us into a pivotal moment in queer history as lived by its most marginalized and misunderstood protagonists. An ode to the care and resilience of trans family, this breathtaking debut never loses sight of the power of love in the face of dire circumstances.
Screenings & Events
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Media
Film Credits
- Giancarlo Nasi, Justin Pechberty, Damien Megherbi
- Diego Céspedes
- Martial Salomon
- Angello Faccini Rueda
- Tamara Cortés, Matías Catalán, Paula Dinamarca, Claudia Cabezas, Luis Dubó
- Florencia Di Concilio
- Quijote Films, Les Valseurs, Weydemann Bros. GMBH Germany, Irusoin, Wrong Men
Sponsors
With support from
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Nuestra Tierra Landmarks
Synopsis
From acclaimed Argentine auteur Lucrecia Martel, known for her poetic and dreamy class-conscious dramas (La Cienaga, The Holy Girl, The Headless Woman) comes a very different, but no less compelling, portrait of inequality. Martel chronicles the trial of three men who entered the Indigenous community of Chuschagasta in northern Argentina to take ownership of the land and then killed the community’s leader, Javier Chocobar. Drawing on vivid archival video of the incident, caught on cellphone cameras, Martel closely follows the story of the crime, its punishment, and its far-reaching consequences.
Part courtroom drama and part lyrical look at the past, present, and future of the Chuschagasta people, Nuestra Tierra provides a broader context for the murderous act and offers a space for members of the community to reclaim their lives from a government that has long tried to deny not only their rights to the land but even their very existence. With a keen eye for symbolic details and for the tensions between tradition and modernity, nature and technology, Martel also tells a larger tale about the perennial struggles and injustices embedded in contemporary society.
Screenings & Events
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Film Credits
- Benjamin Domenech, Santiago Galelli, Matías Roveda, Joslyn Barnes, Julio Chavezmontes, Javier Leoz
- Lucrecia Martel, María Alché
- Jeronimo Pérez Rioja, Miguel Schverdfinger
- Ernesto de Carvalho
- Comunidad Chuschagasta
- Alfonso Olguín
- Danny Glover, Lynda Weinman, Susan Rockefeller, Tony Tabatznik, Maxyne Franklin, Brenda Coughlin, Marco Perego, Michael Cerenzie, Natalia Meta
- Rei Pictures, Piano, Pio & Co, Louverture Films, Lemming Film, Snowglobe
Sponsors
Program Partner
Program Patron
Cynthia Stone Raskin
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Synopsis
In a remote, crumbling convent, young nun Rafaela has recurring, seemingly prophetic dreams. When rumor of a new archbishop in a nearby town reaches the small congregation, Rafaela is sent to find him with the mission of securing funds to save the convent and to ask for guidance regarding one particular mysterious dream that haunts her. Her journey finds her lost in a beautiful and perplexing landscape, guided only by her wavering faith. It is on this road, seemingly to nowhere, that her path intersects with other pilgrims and wayward souls who all seek the archbishop—and whose often questionable motivations unwittingly shape the course of Rafaela’s journey.
Director Karla Badillo’s home region—the sweeping, sparse landscape of San Luis Potosí—is a labyrinth for the spiritually adrift in their surreal, fraught pilgrimages. Oca, named for an ancient board game inspired by the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, is a contemplation on one’s journey through faith and its many detours on the shifting winds of destiny.
Screenings & Events
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Media
Film Credits
- María José Córdova, Karla Badillo, Federico Eibuszyc, Federico Sande Novo
- Karla Badillo
- Loli Moriconi (EDA)
- Diana Garay (AMC)
- Natalia Solián, Cecilia Suárez, Cristel Guadalupe, Leonardo Ortizgris, Raúl Briones, Gerardo Trejo-Luna, Enrique Arreola, Gabriela Núñez, Natalia Plascencia
- Josh Madoff
- Pina Films, Las Jaras, Pucará Cine, Año Cero
Sponsors
Program Patron
Robert and Penelope Steiner Family Foundation
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Cotton Queen
Suzannah MirghaniGermany, France, Palestine, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan
Learn more...
Synopsis
After a young woman goes missing at a rave deep in the mountains of southern Morocco, her father and brother traverse the forbidden desert landscape searching for her. Their journey takes them from one dance party to another, but none of the itinerant revelers can point to her whereabouts. Hearing rumors of an event near the border of Mauritania, the pair take up with a band of outsiders, together embarking on one last dangerous journey beneath the scorching sun.
The pounding pulse of electronica provides the soundtrack to a gripping existential journey to ends of the earth—the film’s title refers to the bridge separating Heaven and Hell in Islamic tradition. Unfolding amid an apocalyptic landscape in which reports of conflict and other crises issue from the radio, director Oliver Laxe’s metaphysical road movie, produced by Spanish cinema icon Pedro Almodóvar, is simultaneously meditative and harrowing in its potent exploration of loss, grief, and violence.
Screenings & Events
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Film Credits
- Domingo Corral, Oliver Laxe, Xavi Font, Pedro Almodóvar, Agustín Almodóvar, Esther García, Oriol Maymó Ferrer, Mani Mortazavi, Andrea Queralt
- Santiago Fillol, Oliver Laxe
- Cristóbal Fernández
- Mauro Herce
- Sergi López, Brúno Nuñez, Stefania Gadda, Joshua Liam Henderson, Tonin Janvier, Jade Oukid, Richard Bellamy
- Esther García
Sponsors
Program Patron
John and Jacolyn Bucksbaum Family Foundation
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This Island Esta Isla
Synopsis
Bebo, a wayward teenager from a coastal Puerto Rican town, lives with his brother in a public housing complex. They struggle to make ends meet as fishermen, but the promise of easy money from an illegal side hustle has them running up against the local drug dealer. When violence suddenly comes for the brothers, Bebo flees to the mountains with his new love Lola, a wealthy girl seeking escape from her troubled home life. As they navigate the island’s wilderness, attempting to evade their pursuers, they encounter mountain inhabitants who practice a fading pastoral way of life. As the tranquil community welcomes them in, the young couple is confronted with the possibility of reinvention—yet the past is never far behind.
Lorraine Jones Molina and Cristian Carretero’s feature debut is a timely examination of Puerto Rico’s precarious present through the eyes of its youth, who seek a better future through connection with history and tradition.
Director Spotlight
Go behind the scenes of This Island (Esta Isla) with directors Lorraine Jones Molina and Cristian Carretero in our Director Spotlight.
Screenings & Events
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Media
Film Credits
- Lorraine Jones Molina, Cristian Carretero
- Cristian Carretero, Lorraine Jones Molina, Kisha Tikina Burgos
- Cristian Carretero, Andrei Nemcik
- Cedric Cheung-Lau
- Zion Ortíz, Fabiola Brown, Xavier Morales, Teófilo Torres, Audicio Robles, Georgina Borri, Omar Iloy, Sean Ortiz, Jeniffe Fret, Bryan Minaya
- Alain Emile
- Rafael Carretero, Annabelle Mullen, Valerie Steinberg, Frankie Cueto
- Experimento Lúdico
- https://habanerofilmsales.com/portfolio/esta-isla
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See your most-anticipated screenings at the 61st Chicago International Film Festival.
