MESAS DE CONVERSACIÓN – PRIMAVERA 2010

Invitación a los Muertos

All films are presented in Spanish with English subtitles
$7 general admission; $6 students, seniors, and Museum members; patron-level members enter free
For more info: http://www.high.org/main.taf?p=4,4,13

Insignificant Things/Cosas Insignificantes
September 25, 2009, 8pm, Rich Theatre, High Museum, Atlanta
A slice-of-life story set in Mexico City, this delicate and finely observed drama explores themes of forgiveness, mortality, and both familial and romantic love. The characters—who include an elderly child psychiatrist, a brooding young woman who works in a corner cafe, a doctor with a secret that is eating away at his relationship with his lover, and a kid being treated for cancer—search for connection and honesty, but often undermine their own efforts. Director Andrea Martinez assembles a terrific ensemble cast (among them Barbara Mori and Sin Nombre’s Paulina Gaitan) and offers up redemption in the small things that happen in our daily lives. (Mexico/Spain, 2008, 98 minutes.) An opening-night reception sponsored by the Consulate General of Mexico in Atlanta will follow the screening in the lower lobby of the Promenade II building, located at 1230 Peachtree Street.

Oblivion/El Olvido
September 26, 2009, 8pm, Rich Theatre, High Museum, Atlanta
Internationally acclaimed documentarian Heddy Honigmann (Forever) returns to the country of her birth to take the pulse of life in Lima, Peru, in this humorous, biting, and humanistic film, which was praised by the International Film Critics Federation for its “poetical and Chaplinesque vision of the resilience of humanity. Haunting the metropolis’s cafes, bars, streets, and barrios, Honigmann captures the juggling acts and gymnastics of young street entertainers who beg for coins at crosswalks, the philosophy of a veteran mixologist who has served Pisco Sours to an unending succession of corrupt presidents and dictators, the eloquence of a poet, and the hard work of those who wait tables, peddle, serve, repair, and polish. Oblivion is an ode to Peru’s people who have been plundered by the powerful, a song for the powerless who resist being consigned to oblivion. (The Netherlands, 2009, 93 minutes.)

The Good Life/La Buena Vida
October 9, 2009, 8pm, Rich Theatre, High Museum, Atlanta
Director Andres Wood (Machuca) brings penetrating intelligence and compassion to this moving drama set in present-day Santiago. Amid the urban chaos, four characters whose lives criss-cross search for their visions of the good life. Teresa is a psychologist who counsels prostitutes on safe sex and struggles to communicate with her fifteen-year-old daughter; Edmundo, a hairdresser who still lives with his mother, dreams of having enough money to buy a car; clarinetist Mario hopes for a job with the philharmonic; and Patricia’s goal is simply to survive. The film won Spain’s Goya Award for Best Spanish Language Foreign Film in 2009. (Chile, 2008, 108 minutes.)

The Lion’s Den/Leonera
October 16, 2009, 8pm, Rich Theatre, High Museum, Atlanta
Pablo Trapero (Rolling Family, Born and Bred) crafts a dark meditation on familial relationships and a searing critique of Argentina’s judicial system in Lion’s Den. Shot on location in a number of Argentinian penitentiaries and featuring many non-actors in supporting roles, the film tells the story of Julia, a twenty-five–year-old student incarcerated for committing a murder she can’t remember. While endlessly awaiting trial, she gives birth to a baby boy, Tomas, and is sent to a prison reserved for mothers and their young children. The place is chaotic and sometimes brutal, but the women, most of whom are poor and uneducated, still constitute a community. Emotionally shattered and alone, Julia is comforted and protected by another prisoner who helps her bond with her son. But her fragile peace is threatened when Sofia, the mother who abandoned Julia years before, returns. Star Martina Gusman (who is married to the director) delivers a ferocious performance as Julia and provides a strong emotional core for this documentary-textured drama. Gusman won the International Film Critics’ FIPRESCI award for Best Actress at the Palm Spring International Film Festival; the film was nominated for the Palm D’Or at Cannes in 2008. This film is not appropriate for children. (Argentina/Brazil, 2008, 113 minutes.)

The Paranoids/Los Paranoicos
October 17, 2009, 8pm, Rich Theatre, High Museum, Atlanta
Gabriel Medina’s deadpan comedy centers on Luciano (Family Law’s Daniel Hendler), a hangdog twenty-something whose life is defined by his endless anxieties. When he’s not working to make ends meet by dressing as a cartoon character (a sort of Argentine Barney) and entertaining at children’s parties, Luciano toils away on a script he has been writing for years. But Luciano’s angst, which keeps him paralyzed, is inspiring to Manuel, a smooth-talking producer who has launched a successful Spanish television series called The Paranoids that is based on his friend’s miseries. Now he has returned to Argentina to launch a homegrown version featuring an actor who declares, “I’m Luciano Gauna and I’ve been a damn coward my whole life.” To complicate matters, Manuel’s insomniac girlfriend Sofia starts crashing at Luciano’s place and the stage is set for a very neurotic romance. (Argentina, 2008, 98 minutes.)

Café de los Maestros
October 23, 2009, 8pm, Rich Theatre, High Museum, Atlanta
Reminiscent of The Buena Vista Social Club, director Miguel Kohan’s affectionate and bittersweet Café de los Maestros is a valentine to the elder statesmen of Argentina’s treasured musical form, the tango. Tango means dance to most Americans, but here the musicians rule—and what amazing musicians they are! Seasoned, courtly, playful, and still ablaze with love for their art, these masters were legends in the 1930s and 1940s. Kohan unites them for a magnificent performance at the famed Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires. But before the big night, Kohan and his crew capture the gentlemen as they rehearse and reminisce, and follow as they make the rounds of the bar, the race track, and the repair shop that specializes in fixing bandoneones, the concertina-like instruments that are integral to the tango orchestra. (Argentina/Brazil/U.K./ U.S., 2008, 90 minutes.)

Ocean
October 31, 2009, 8pm, Rich Theatre, High Museum, Atlanta
Russian filmmaker Mikhail Kosyrev-Nesteroy mixes operatic emotion, realist acting, and a fearlessly inventive visual style in this lush, rhapsodic ode to Cuba and its people. The action alternates between a small fishing village that is home to a protective mother and her three sons and Havana, the metropolis where the eldest son, Joel, believes that any dream can come true. Joel chafes at the simple life, and when the gorgeous, fickle girl he loves betrays him he leaves for the city. But the infinite possibilities he expects to find there prove elusive, and his nose for trouble is unerring. As its title suggests, Ocean explores the fluid, fierce undertow of passion and ties it to an edemic tropical landscape whose beauty is as intoxicating as a first kiss. (Russia, 2008, 107 minutes.)

Mesa De Conversación “La Charla”
Conversation Tables
Wednesdays and Thursdays
12:30pm – 1:30pm
Rm. PS 237

You are invited to sit at the Spanish Conversation Tables. You can practice speaking Spanish or just listen. You can bring your lunch and/or a friend. The groups get together twice a week on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the Pilcher Building on the second floor in room PS 237. All levels are welcomed and so are all students, faculty, and staff.

Vamos a practicar algo de español en un ambiente relajado. Vengan a visitarnos por la tarde y a pasar un rato todos juntos.

¡Hasta pronto!

Nos vemos en las mesas de conversación.