CineFest 2015 will feature four films and one documentary covering a broad spectrum of topics: immigration, environmental exploitation, coming of age and cultural identities. We hope that through these films we give voice to the unheard stories of many different cultures in the Spanish-speaking world.
5:15pm: Opening Remarks
Opening remarks: 4:15pm
4:30-6:00 p.m. ¿Quién es Dayani Cristal? / Who is Dayani Cristal? (1:25) Director: Marc Silver / Mexico - Deep in the sun-blistered Sonora desert beneath a cicada tree, Arizona border police discover a decomposing male body. Lifting a tattered T-shirt they expose a tattoo that reads “Dayani Cristal.” Who is this person? What brought him here? How did he die? And who—or what—is Dayani Cristal? Following a team of dedicated forensic anthropologists from the Pima County Morgue in Arizona, director Marc Silver seeks to answer these questions and give this anonymous man an identity. As the forensic investigation unfolds, Mexican actor and activist Gael Garcia Bernal retraces this man’s steps along the migrant trail in Central America.
6:15-7:45 p.m. El Facilitador / The Facilitator (1:23)
Director: Victor Arregui / Ecuador, Chile, USA - A political thriller about human rights, The Facilitator is one of the most successful films to come out of Ecuador in the last few years. When Miguel, a successful businessman, learns he is ill, he asks his estranged daughter Elena to come back to Ecuador. She agrees, but maintains a cold and distant relationship with him, opting to spend most of her time with friends using drugs and alcohol. After a close call with the law, Miguel sends her to spend some time with her grandfather at the family’s estate.
8:00-10:00 p.m. Yvy Maraey, Tierra Sin Mal / Yvy Maraey, A Land Without Evil (1:47) Director: Juan Carlos Valdivia / Bolivia - A Bolivian filmmaker and a Guaraní Indian travel together through the forests of southeastern Bolivia to make a film about the Guaraní people. The starting point is a 1911 film by Swedish explorer Erland Nordenskiöld. But today’s reality turns out to be much more intense than the nostalgia for a lost world. In Yvy Maraey, the white man (the director) and the Indian create and interpret their own characters, walking the thin line between documentary, fiction, and performance. Far from observing another culture, we are watched and questioned about our identity in a country undergoing enormous social, political, and historical change as it struggles to create an intercultural society.
New York City, NY; NYC