The festival opens March 22nd with the U.S premiere of “Ciro & Yo” “a film that moves from beginning to end”.
New York, February 9th, 2018. – On its sixth edition, The Colombian Film Festival New York (COLFILMNY), announces its official selection. More than 30 films will participate in this festival that has become the biggest celebration of the Colombian film industry outside its borders. COLFILMNY will take place March 22nd to 25th, 2018 with the participation of various actors and filmmakers in the different presentations. The program, which contains a wide selection of different genres, will open with a red carpet on Thursday, March 22nd at 6:00 pm receiving the best of Colombian talent at the Cinépolis Chelsea theaters and the premiere for the U.S of the documentary “Ciro & I” directed by Miguel Salazar.
Official Selection Fiction:
EL DÍA DE LA CABRA (Samir Oliveros) – After accidentally killing a bearded goat with their father’s truck, two incompatible siblings in their teenage years, embark on a journey of reconciliation. Corn and Rita must find a way to repair the truck in time to pick up the tourists that will be staying at the family’s hotel. As they struggle to find the means necessary to conceal the accident, the siblings will visit a butcher, Rastafari drum makers, a pawn shop and even a witch doctor, in a 24-hour adventure around Port Paradise.
DOBLE (Felipe Martínez Amador) – Fede leaves Mariana, his wife, for a double identical to her but 20 years younger. Excited with the idea of turning her into the woman he always dreamed of, he ends up discovering that he was actually happy as he was – and that Mariana could be happier without him–.
FORTUNA LAKE (Felipe Martínez Amador) – A young woman who escapes a mental facility, a mysterious neighbor, a sadistic nurse, a prisoner, a ghostly visitor and a missing person. Malorie will have to discover how she is linked to all of them.
EL LIBRO DE LILA (Marcela Rincón González) – Lila, a character in a children’s storybook, suddenly falls out of her paper world and ends up trapped in a place she doesn’t belong … so starts this great adventure, where Lila will discover the value of memory.
HANDLE WITH CARE (Arild Andresen) – Kjetil, a Norwegian offshore worker is a recent widower, now left alone to take care of his adopted son, Daniel. Unable to deal with his single parent role, Kjetil decides to bring Daniel back to Colombia, where a taxi driver helps him look for the biological mother.
NADIE SABE PARA QUIEN TRABAJA (Harold Trompetero) – Arturo is a 45-year-old white-collar worker with an office of legal advisers. One day Arturo meets Simon, a 30–year– old man who has the possibility of inheriting a great fortune. The problem? Simon has no right to the inheritance because he isn’t related to the deceased who didn’t leave a will. Arturo will ally with Antonia, an accountant with whom he shares an office, to claim the inheritance by applying the most unexpected techniques, tactics and tricks.
Official Selection Documentary:
CIRO & YO (Miguel Salazar) – Ciro Galindo was born on August 29th, 1952 in Colombia. Wherever he’s gone, war has found him. After twenty years of friendship, I understood Ciro‘s life sums up Colombia’s history. As so many Colombians, he is a survivor who has run away from war for more than sixty years and now dreams of living in peace. “Ciro & Me” is a journey to memory, seeking to give sorrow words; a journey, similar to that of Colombia in times of peace, in search to recover its dignity.
AMAZONA (Clare Weiskopf) – This is the story of Val and Clare: a mother and a daughter. After the tragic death of her eldest child, Val left her kids and family behind and escaped into the Colombian jungle. Only 11 at the time, Clare Weiskopf (the director of this film) couldn’t understand what her mother was looking for. Thirty years later, when she becomes pregnant, Clare decides to confront her mother, heal the wounds of the past, and try to define motherhood on her own terms. Together they go on an intimate journey exploring the boundaries between responsibility and freedom, with all the guilt and sacrifice they entail. What makes someone a good mother?
EL FIN DE LA GUERRA (Marc Silver) – ‘To End a War’ is an intimate, observational documentary that goes behind the scenes of the peace negotiations between FARC guerrilla and the Colombian government, exploring what it takes for a nation of 50 million to move from hatred to forgiveness, from war to peace.
NUEVE DISPAROS (Jorge Andrés Giraldo) – In Nine Shots, Jorge faces the images he and his mother had recorded through their lives, creating a first-person account about his life, his depths, and the dreams he has achieved through a blood-spattered way. This testimony also gives the account of the youths going to combat in our internal armed conflict -whatever the side they fight for- and mothers giving birth to sons for our wars.
SEÑORITA MARIA (Rubén Mendoza) – Boavita is a rural, conservative, and Catholic village embedded in the Andes and frozen in time: in the foothills of these mountains lives Miss Maria Luisa. She is 45 years old and was born a boy. Behind what appears to be just another life mired in gender and identity conflicts lies a bitter, unimaginable family history, its deepest roots seasoned with hatred. And the scapegoat in this story has always been our Miss, even before she set foot in this world. And yet her power is fueled by these same forces –the strength of animals and the mountain. No darkness has ever been able to topple or eclipse her.
Official Selection Short film:
CLEAN (Teddy Cuartas) – An unemployed neat freak fights against his insecurities after learning that unwelcome familiar guests were coming. An intense one-minute story produced with only $17.
COFFEE BREAK (María Cristina Pérez) – For decades, every working day at four in the afternoon, Pepe, a deer Clerk, drinks coffee. Routine consumes his life. Expectations are followed by disappointments; meanwhile, Pepe grows gray hair and loses his enthusiasm.
CORTEZA (Paloma Rincón) – Lilia is 71 years old and Alzheimer’s disease has transformed her mind and body. Her world is full of noises and whispers. Sometimes thoughts come out from her mouth and reveal a disturbing reality. The Bark is a short film that describes this woman’s bath routine. Submerged in a bathtub, Lilia lets her body lie there, while an imposing black woman is in charge of rinse her, rub her…accompany her and contemplate her. Arms, legs, skin, bones. This is the inventory of a body that consumes itself. A body that inhabits another world and another time.
DAMIANA (Andrés Ramírez Pulido) – Deep inside the jungle, a group of teenage girls are being kept under supervision. Despite abandonment and hostility, Damiana hopes she can get in touch with her father.
ESPERAME GENOVEVA (Camilo Andrés Borraez) – Ricardo is a young man of humble extraction who must work to support his mother, enduring the humiliations of his employer. In those days of work, he meets Genoveva, a neighbor prostitute of the sector who will break his convictions and behavior. Colombian short film based on the short story Genoveva always awaits me, from the Bogotá author Hernando Téllez.
IRIS (Liliana Díaz Castillo) – Iris, 22-year-old Colombian woman has a return ticket to her country leaving the next day. Reluctant to return she starts to investigate what could be her eventual future as an illegal immigrant. With only 24 hours she has to decide on trying to get closer to her dreams or her home.
LA CASA EN EL ÁRBOL (Juan Sebastián Quebrada) – Today, Veronica moves in with Mateo. Is this the beginning or the end?
LA MADRE DE TODAS LAS MADRES (Wilson Arango) – Following the disappearance of her son, Teresita Gaviria searches tirelessly for the truth that will restore her life and allow her to overcome the pain experienced by hundreds of other Colombian mothers, also victims of violence.
LULITA (Andrés Mahecha) – Andrés, an adolescent constantly weighed down by his own thoughts, goes to meet his beloved Lulita. Inspired by Andrés Caicedo´s story of Lulita who doesn´t want to open the door, this short film depicts the potential scenarios for this romantic Sunday encounter, as imagined by Andrés while he makes his way to Lulita´s house. The film is also a window into life in the city of Cali in the 70´s, where salsa, literature, and Cinema ruled.
MENGUANTE (Melisa Zapata Montoya) – Negra, a young afro-descendant girl, arrives at her house near the sea with the news that could change her life and Vieja’s, her adoptive mother.
NIEVE (Camila Arriaga Torres) – Luis, a hermit, and solitary man, faces the weight of the memories he has tried to forget.
NO ME LLAMES ANTONIA (Nicolás Martínez Lozano) – One last effort to grasp what is left of a woman’s memory. Her existence vanishing through what she no longer remembers.
PIDBANG (Inti Jacanamijoy) – Lucie is a sixteen-year-old girl who lives with her mother Jeanne. She will have to choose between living her mother’s dream of seeing her as a runaway model or creating her own path using her body in a whole different way…
ROBO (Sebastián Duque Muñoz) – A man takes care of his 92-year-old mother in a Colombian city. His life has changed. Decades ago, their drums used to characterize the bands’ Black Flag and Misfits. He is Robo: a world-class punker born in the capital of salsa.
STORYLINES (Juan Manuel Betancourt) – A man trapped inside the prison of his memories will have to overcome the ghosts of his past to reclaim his place in the world.
THE JUNGLE KNOWS YOU BETTER THAN YOU DO (Juanita Onzaga) – Colombia is a land of ghosts. Two siblings roam these mystical landscapes in search of their dead father’s spirit. Their journey takes them from Bogota to the Colombian jungle, through realms of thought and deep into their haunted dreams. Here they will find some answers and attract unexpected company.
TSUKI (Mauricio Leiva Cock) – Samael and Benjamin spend their days playing with their dog Tsuki and their three new bunnies. However, during a family lunch, the three bunnies disappear. This prompts a decision that will forever affect the fate of the beloved family dog.
VIDEL (Jorge Ospina) – After losing the love of his life by suicide, a narcissistic manipulator called Arthur travels to hell to bring her back. Arthur will have to face Videl (The Devil) with his manipulation and observations techniques in order to find Videl´s flaws. But the Devil has created an elaborated plan to torture Arthur and Michelle (Arthur´s girlfriend). Now, Arthur has to decide between torture the love of his life or stay in hell for eternity.
Classics:
The classics will also have space at the festival, Proimágenes Colombia presents during this edition of our festival the restorations of the films Visa USA from Lisandro Duque (1986) and Cóndores No Entierran Todos Los Días from Francisco Norden (1984).
VISA USA (Lisandro Duque) – In a town of high hills and temperature, the son o of small aviculturist dreams to be a reporter in United States. In his projects love crosses with many difficulties since the family of his loved one does not consider he deserves her. The obstacles are so big that our man leaves to the capital to obtain a visa and reach better horizons.
CÓNDORES NO ENTIERRAN TODOS LOS DÍAS (Francisco Norden) – It is based on the novel under the same name from writer Gustavo Alvarez Gardeazábal. It is the first fiction film document that focuses one of the defining profiles from a social and political history of Colombia, the violence. This film marks how since the XIX century the two traditional political parties, the Liberal and Conservative, fought a series of uninterrupted civil wars that lasted about a hundred years. The last one of them, known as “La Violencia”, is the framework in which the argument occurs. This war began after the popular leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitan is assassinated on April 9, 1948. That day a dark age began and lasted nearly a decade and in which murderers for pay played an important role, the so-called “pajaros” such as Leon Maria Lozano, the most notorious of all, “El Condor”!
Special Presentation:
As a special presentation, the festival brings the Venezuelan film “El Inca” from Ignacio Castillo Cottin, a film censored by the Venezuelan tribunal. Based in the story of Edwin Valero, an invict and twice world boxing champion, “El Inca” shows a complex biographical drama about talent and charisma, love and ambition, excess and self-destruction.
When Juan Carvajal, Founder and Artistic Director of the festival, explains the importance of this anniversary, he says: “It is a festival where Colombian culture meets in Manhattan, as the City of New York has recognized it. It is valuable that it continues to create that unique and necessary link with the Colombian diaspora through the cinematographically images of our country”.
About ColFilmNY:
The Colombian Film Festival New York is sponsored by the Colombian Embassy in the United States, Proimágenes Colombia, Prexco, Caracol Cine and Univision (Official network of the COLFILMNY).
The Colombian Film Festival New York 2018
March 22 – 25, 2018
Cinepolis Chelsea (260 W 23rd St, New York, NY 10011)
Buy tickets: www.colfilmny.com
15% of discount until February 28Th using de promo code: COLOMBIANFILMLOVER
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Twitter: @ColfilmNY
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For interviews with the director of the CFFNY, Juan Carvajal, guest artists, photos, HD videos, please contact David Benitez via phone, text or email at +1 347.468.6446, david.daniteznetwork@gmail.com or press@colfilmny.com.
Juan studied Radio Production in his hometown, Cali, where he started working for radio and in the beginnings of the regional network Telepacifico. In 2000 he moved to Bogota and graduated in Professional Cinematography and Photography. Juan worked as a creative director for Satelco where he created media and interactive platforms for well-known Colombian companies such as Caracol, RCN, Telmex, Claro, Max Media, MTV3.
After 4 years of working in Colombia as developer of creative shows for television, he created his own company Smart Media Factory to develop interactive programs for Finland, Spain, Argentina, Panama, Morocco and Colombia. Living in Spain, Argentina and Finland gave him the opportunity to work several years as graphic reporter for some of these companies; besides short film making.
In 2009 he returned to United States and started working with different film festivals until in 2013 created the Colombian Film Festival New York. He is the Co-founder and Artistic Director of IndieBo, Bogota Independent Film Festival in Colombia and recently created with great success The Classics Film Festival, a festival of films that will live forever.
THE COLOMBIAN FILM FESTIVAL
www.colfilmny.com
The Colombian Film Festival New York was founded by Juan Carvajal in 2013 with the objective to bring closer and connect the diaspora of Colombia to its roots and talent as well as to promote the country and the Colombian film in the City of New York where the cinematographical works that arrive from Colombia create extraordinary links with their spectators taking them to live in the big screen the best of our talent and cinematography industry.