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Latinbeat 2005 has been curated by Cord Dueppe,
Marcela Goglio and Inés Aslan.
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In this poignant absurdist
comedy, a Bolivian government ministry worker named Jesus has a
heart attack one day at work. His wife leaves him taking their life
savings, and sticking him with the hospital tab. Jesus uses the
record of a man suffering from terminal cancer who shares his name
to gain indefinitely covered hospitalization. This launches a
cat-and-mouse game between the insurance company and Jesus, who
finds himself in the maternity ward before being transferred to a
terminal patient room overseen by nurse Beatriz. Director Loayza has
crafted a very funny and poignant film.
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Set in 1978, this
beautifully humanistic film about the futility of war, follows the
story of a Chilean border patrol unit that gets lost on their march
to the Argentinian border. When the soldiers set off, their goal is
to “kill five Argentine soldiers each with 20 bullets,” but after
days of wandering the pampas encountering no more than a stray dog,
they soon become disillusioned with their role in “the war that
never was.” And then something unexpected happens.... My Best
Enemy was a huge box-office hit in Chile and played at many
international film festivals.
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Civil wars split nations,
but they split families as well. The Immortal takes us to
the Nicaraguan countryside, into the shattered world of the Rivera
family, whose twin brothers through a twist of fate fought on
opposite sides of the Contra war.The “Inmortal” of the title is an
ominous evangelical bus traveling through Nicaragua, offering
simplified theology and hollow redemption to a people hungry for
something to give reason to madness, a metaphor for the family’s and
the country's recovery.
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Juan Villegas is a petrol
station attendant who is laid off after 20 years of service.
Unemployed at his age and without any kind of professional skill,
Juan can’t see a way out. Chance leads him to carry out a small car
repair job at a farm, for which he’s paid with a striking-looking
dog. Juan soon realizes that his future lies with the dog and
contacts Walter, a man who prepares dogs for shows in his spare
time. A long period of training then begins for both the dog and the
man — a bumpy road that will immerse Juan and the audience in an
array of unexpected delightful twists and turns.
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During the carnival
celebrations of 1959, the social and sports club Luna de Avellaneda
was in full swing. Today it is barely a shadow of its former self.
Román Maldonado (Ricardo Darín), already in his forties, has been
devoted to the club most of his life, but the cracks in his private
life are becoming even more difficult to ignore. One day, the idea
of selling the place to build a casino on its premises is presented,
and the time to make difficult decisions arrives. With the same
light and humorous touch of his previous films, Moon
parallels the story of the club with the history of Argentina.
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Odd People Out is
a documentary about the process of marginalization, repression and
denial of the gay community during the first two decades of the
Cuban Revolution, through the eyes and voice of Cuban writer
Reinaldo Arenas. A counterpoint to the fictional Before Night
Falls, Odd People Out constructs a kaleidoscopic
depiction of Reinaldo’s life and of the Cuban gay community before
and after the revolution. A unique testimony of a unique time and a
unique artist, it combines rare archival material with contemporary
footage clandestinely shot in Cuba.
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What Sebastian Dreamt/ Lo Que Sono Sebastian
Rodrigo Rey Rosa, Guatemala, 93
minutes
Based on Rodrigo Rey Rosa’s own novel, What Sebastián Dreamt
includes the rainforest of Guatamala as a character in this darkly
beautiful tale. It tells the story of young Spaniard Sebastián (Andoni
Gracia), who, inspired by the jungle landscape, moves into the
Guatemalan rainforest. Sebastian bars local hunters from his
property, earning the ire of the Calajs, a family of macho poachers.
“Murder, malaria, archaeological-relic forgery and the
ill-considered visit of a careless French woman (Juliette Deschamps)
build a sense of fatalistic intrigue balanced between violence and
hallucination,” (Dennis Harvey, Variety) A selection of the
2004 Sundance Film Festival. |
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