The Roberto Guerra Documentary Fund was launched in the fall of 2014 during the 5th Contemporary Peruvian Film Showcase. Originally from Peru, filmmaker Roberto Guerra came to New York as a young, aspiring filmmaker in the late 60s to meet the cinema verité pioneers. From then on he was inspired to create a number of films while living in New York and Europe. He continued to shoot and produce throughout the last year of his life. His spirit and equanimity in the face of his sudden cancer diagnosis was inspirational. He died in January 2014.

Join us for a FREE screening of excerpts from work by Rodrigo Reyes,  this year’s recipient of the Roberto Guerra Fund award, including his supported project Sanson and Me. Combining documentary and the language of fiction, Rodrigo Reyes examines the intersections of immigration, class, and opportunity.

Complimentary beer provided by Cusqueña ; complimentary food provided by Chimu Peruvian restaurant.

Special thanks to: Conrado Falco and Hector Rojas, Trade Commission of Peru in NY; Chris Yong-Garcia, Latin Lover Magazine; Mario Santillan, Chimu Peruvian Restaurant; Fabrizio Custode, Cusqueña.

Sanson and Me is a coming of age story about two Mexican immigrants with parallel lives. Following the screening will be a conversation with the director, Rodrigo Reyes.

Rodrigo Reyes is an award-winning Mexican-American filmmaker living in Oakland, California currently in the process of completing his hybrid film, Sanson and Me, which combines the language of fiction with documentary and examines the intersection between immigration, class and opportunity with the criminal justice system. With Sanson and Me, Reyes is working with Producer Su Kim, Mexico-based Producer Inti Cordera, celebrated Director Alan Berliner and Author Daniel Alarcón as Creative Advisors.

His previous films include the documentary, Purgatorio, and the neorealist narrative, Lupe Under the Sun. His work has been screened in nearly 50 film festivals around the world, including the LA Film Festival, Guadalajara International Film Festival and Documentary Fortnight at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, garnering rave reviews in the New York Times, Variety and other media outlets, as well as multiple Jury Awards. Named one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film by Filmmaker Magazine, in 2016 he was chosen as a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow at MacDowell Colony and in 2017 he was selected for the National Mediamaker Fellowship by the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC). His work has received the support of Tribeca Film Institute, Sundance Institute, California Humanities Council Film Independent, IFP Narrative and Documentary Labs, and the Mexican Film Institute. In 2017, Rodrigo was named a Guggenheim Fellow.

Manuel Betancourt is a writer, film critic and a cultural reporter in New York City. His academic work on film fandom has appeared in Genre and GLQ, while his work of cultural criticism has been featured in Film Comment, The Atlantic, Esquire, Pacific Standard, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. He is a regular contributor to Remezcla where he covers Latin American cinema and U.S. Latino media culture