Document Type

Press Release

Publication Date

5-4-2012

Abstract

Nine international films representing seven countries will be showcased May 9-13 in Lawrence University’s first annual Latin American and Spanish Film Festival.

The theme of the festival focuses on the body and sex. All films will be shown with English subtitles and are free and open to the public.

Highlighting the festival will be a presentation by Paul Julian Smith, internationally recognized literary and film critic in Hispanic cultural studies. Smith will discuss the work of acclaimed Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar in the address ” Almodóvar’s Women” Friday, May 11 at 6 p.m. in the Wriston Art Center auditorium.

Smith has written dozens of reviews as the Spanish film critic for the British Film Institute’s Sight and Sound magazine. The author of “Desire Unlimited: The Cinema of Pedro Almodóvar,” he has established himself as one of the world’s leading scholars on the work of the Spanish filmmaker. Smith is currently a Distinguished Professor in the Ph.D. program in Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Languages at City University of New York

The film festival schedule includes:

• May 9 — “The Skin I Live In” (Spain)
 A brilliant plastic surgeon, haunted by past tragedies, creates a synthetic skin that withstands any kind of damage. His guinea pig: a mysterious and volatile woman who holds the key to his obsession.

• May 9 — “The Fish Child” (Argentina)
 A desperate love story between two young girls. Unable to find a place for their love in the world they live in, they are pushed to commit a crime.

• May 10 — “Reverón” (Venezuela)
 The story of the famous visual artist Armando Reverón from 1924 to 1954, including his personal relationship with the woman named Juanita who would become his inseparable companion.

• May 10 — “Leap Year” (Mexico)
 Laura’s personal life consists of one affair after another. She meets Arturo, and the pair begins an intense sexual relationship. As the days go by, Laura crosses them off on a calendar, revealing her secret past to her lover.

• May 11 — “A Year Without Love” (Argentina)
A writer living with AIDS searches for a cure and human interaction in the hospitals and sex clubs of Buenos Aires.

• May 12 — “Undertow” (Peru)
 An unusual ghost story set in the Peruvian seaside. A married fisherman struggles to reconcile his devotion to his male lover with his town’s rigid traditions.

• May 12 — “Love For Sale” (Brazil) 
In order to raise money, a young woman in the northeast of Brazil decides to raffle her own body.

• May 13 — “Mosquita y Mari” (USA)
 In a fast-paced immigrant community where dreams are often lost to economic survival, two young girls contemplate life as they awaken sexual desires in each other.

• May 13 —“Chico & Rita” (Spain)
 Chico is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and romantic desire unites them, but their journey – in the tradition of the Latin ballad, the bolero – brings heartache and torment.

Department

Spanish

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