Stone Center and CCSI to Feature Sponsor Latin American and Caribbean Films During 34th New Orleans Film Festival
The Stone Center for Latin American Studies and The Cuban and Caribbean Studies Institute are partnering with the 34th New Orleans Film Festival (NOFF) by feature sponsoring the films Mountains and La Bonga. The festival will take place in person from November 2-7, 2023, and the majority of the lineup will be virtually accessible from November 2-12, 2023 via the NOFF Virtual Cinema. To access the complete film guide, click the link: https://neworleansfilmsociety.org/film-guide/
The New Orleans Film Festival annually brings together more than 150 films and hosts more than 100 filmmakers to celebrate works of emerging and established filmmakers from New Orleans, Louisiana, the South, and beyond. The Stone Center for Latin American Studies has been actively sponsoring NOFF since its 2017 edition when the festival decided to regularly include Latin American and Caribbean works and filmmakers.
Mountains, directed by Monica Sorelle
Friday, November 3 | 6:15 p.m. | Contemporary Arts Center - Black Box Theatre
Monday, November 6 | 5:15 p.m. | Prytania Theatres at Canal Place 2
While looking for a new home for his family, a Haitian demolition worker is faced with the realities of redevelopment as he is tasked with dismantling his rapidly gentrifying Miami neighborhood.
“Delving into complex issues of gentrification, assimilation, and familial conflict, Mountains is both pointed in its specific portrayal of a singular world and its particular sociopolitical landscape, yet so delicately depicted as to feel universal. Each of these characters are so richly drawn and embodied, as is the Haitian-American community in which they live: a testament to these actors and Sorelle’s contemplative but vivid filmmaking approach.” - Stephanie Tell, NOFF Programmer
Kendall Medford, Ph.D. candidate in Linguistics at Tulane, will lead the after-screening Q&A, on November 3, with the director and writer Monica Sorelle, and producer and co-writer Robert Colom.
Kendall Medford is a linguist and PhD Candidate at Tulane University, where she also teaches Haitian Creole courses. Her doctoral research focuses on Haitian migration in the Caribbean, examining the role that the Creole language plays in the lives of Haitian migrants and their descendants in these diasporic communities.
The Cuban and Caribbean Studies Institute sponsors this movie.
More information about the film and how to get tickets can be found on the NOFF website, or by clicking this link: https://bit.ly/3Mk9q7v
La Bonga, directed by Sebastián Pinzón Silva and Canela Reyes
Saturday, November 4 | 12:00 p.m. | Prytania Theatres at Canal Place 1
Twenty years ago, the maroon community of La Bonga in Colombia received a threat signed by paramilitaries. That same night, the entire town fled and La Bonga was devoured by the jungle. La Bonga is a symbolic journey through the jungles of the Colombian Caribbean to resurrect a place that only exists in memory. In an act of resistance, this party lets the loss go, as it celebrates collective memory and community.
The film is a co-production between the filmmakers, the community of La Bonga and the film collective of San Basilio de Palenque, Kuchá Suto. Kuchá Suto is a collective of Afro-Colombian creators actively using different forms of media to preserve their culture and create dialogue around the importance of their ancestral heritage. This film is ultimately an act of collective creation, in which all intertwine to make something more collectively complex.
Alejeandro Kelly-Hopfenblatt, Ph.D., Zemurray-Stone Post-doctoral Fellow, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, will lead the after-screening Q&A with director Sebastián Pinzón Silva.
Alejandro Kelly-Hopfenblatt is a Zemurray-Stone Postdoctoral Fellow at the Stone Center for Latin American Studies at Tulane University. Originally from Argentina, he studies the history of Latin American and Argentine film industries and teaches courses on Global South cinemas and film culture.
The Stone Center for Latin American Studies sponsors this movie.
More information about the film and how to get tickets can be found on the NOFF website, or by clicking this link: https://bit.ly/3tPGaPG
