US National Premiere, presented by Cinema Tropical.
Memories of the Future, Rodrigo Reyes, 2009-2012, 70 minutes
A woman writes increasingly passionate love letters without answer. Her passion and frustration are interwoven with a sense of impending doom, a vision of the coming Mexican apocalypse. A single personal tragedy mirrors the struggle of an entire country trying, in the midst of increasing chaos, to find itself.
Winner of the LCI AWARD at the 2012 FICUNAM Film Festival.
Following the screening, there will be discussion between Cinema Tropical’s Carlos Gutierrez and director Rodrigo Reyes. Following the discussion will be a birthday party at UnionDocs for Gutierrez and closed to all attendees.
A note from the director:
I shot this film on a shoestring over several months on the road, living in the back of a minivan. Memories is a catalogue of my concerns and struggles, a deliberate digging into shadows of the Mexican soul, a mad universe of visceral images and characters on the edge of reality.
This is the film’s first public screening in the US. I feel anxious and confused by the context. On the one hand, this work was my very own film school, raw and incredibly painful. On the other, I don’t ever want to see it again because I may find that I have not strayed too far from its universe.
Join UnionDocs before the screening for the closeding reception of Kinetoscopic Records, presented by Peephole Cinema and programmed by Dan Streible (NYU / Orphan Film Symposium. Free; from 5pm – 7pm.
Bios:
Rodrigo Reyes (b. 1983) is a Mexican-American filmmaker working in narratives and documentaries. His films have screened at many festivals around the world, garnering several awards.
Carlos A. Gutiérrez is co-founder and executive director of Cinema Tropical. As a guest curator, he has presented several film/video series at different cultural institutions, including The Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, BAMcinématek, and the IFC Center, among others. In 2007, he co-curated the 53rd edition of the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar under the banner “South of the Other”. He is a contributing editor to BOMB magazine and has served as a member of the jury for various film festivals including the Morelia, SANFIC, DocsDF, Austin’s Cine Las Americas, and the Havana Film Festival in New York. He has served as both expert nominator and panelist for the Rockefeller Fellowship Program for Mexican Film & Media Arts, Sundance Documentary Fund, the Tribeca Film Institute’s LatinAmerica Media Arts Fund, and The Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.
About Cinema Tropical
New York-based Cinema Tropical (CT) is the leading presenter of Latin American cinema in the U.S. Founded in 2001 by Carlos A. Gutiérrez and Mónika Wagenberg with the mission of distributing, programming and promoting what was to become the biggest boom of Latin American cinema in decades, CT brought U.S. audiences some of the first screening of films such as Amores Perros and Y Tu Mamá También. Through a diversity of programs and initiatives, CT is thriving as a dynamic and groundbreaking 501(c)(3) non-profit media arts organization experimenting in the creation of better and more effective strategies for the distribution and exhibition of foreign cinema in this country.
