Escribí un artículo sobre la magnífica exposición de video comunitario que se hizo en el MACO Oaxaca justo antes de la pandemia. La publiqué en Desist Film (en español), y en Millenium Film Journal (en inglés).
I wrote an article about the extraordinary exhibition of Oaxacan Community Video that took place at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Oaxaca just before lockdown. I published it in Millenium Film Journal (in English) and in Desist Film (in Spanish).
( ( ( ( ( /*\ ) ) ) ) ) aka Echoes of the Volcano, the second film codirected by Saúl Kak and I, had its world premiere at Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montreal (RIDM) in late 2019. We were there – it was wonderful. Unfortunately, every subsequent festival has been cancelled, postponed, or moved (at least partially) online due to the pandemic, so we haven’t been able to screen it to a live audience since. Nevertheless, it has had a great run: it has screened across six continents at festivals including Oberhausen, Ambulante, Encounters, L’Alternativa, Punto de Vista, Open City Doc Fest, Guadalajara, and many more.
It won Best Short Documentary at the Morelia International Film Festival, Best International Short at the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival, and Best International Film at the Ann Arbor Film Festival; it also won jury awards at CUFF: Chicago Underground Film Festival, and at L’Alternativa.
I wrote an essay about the marvelous and completely unique Ânûû-rû Âboro: a festival of people’s cinema in New Caledonia. I was glad to publish it in Senses of Cinema because it’s especially geographically meaningful and politically subversive to publish this article and these ideas in an Australia-based journal (read the article to understand why).
The Modern Jungle was acquired by Cinema Guild for Educational distribution. It’s also now available on iTunes in the US and Canada.
Since the last time I posted, The Modern Jungle screened at Art of the Real, Visions du Réel, DokuFest, Ânûû-rû Âboro, Ambulante, Ann Arbor, Atlanta, OtherCine, UnionDocs, The Wexner Art Center, Visible Evidence XXV, and many other venues. It won Best Documentary at Présence Autochtone: the First Peoples’ Festival of Montreal, and jury awards at Slamdance and Athens. Multiple critics selected it as one of their Top 5 Latino Films of 2016.
In 2016 I organized my Summer video class at Antioch College around the Republican National Convention. After a short introduction to video, sound recording and interviewing skills, we spent three days at the plaza outside the convention, then spent eight weeks editing our collaboratively-produced documentary. The final product of our labors was the short film SERIOUSLY NOT FUNNY, which was selected for several different festivals, winning two awards. For many of the students, this was their first video production class: they went on to produce great things throughout their time at Antioch, including for their Senior Projects, many of which I advised on. It was a great collaboration, a great film, and more importantly helped us understand Trumpism from the ground level, at it was still emerging.
THE MODERN JUNGLE is second among MovieMaker Magazine’s picks for the Slamdance Film Festival!
In December we got to share La Selva Negra / The Modern Jungle in its home state of Chiapas at FICSC
- the International Film Festival of San Cristobal. The film’s
protagonists Juan and Carmen were there, and the film showed to an audience of 300+ there was not an empty seat in the house!
The Modern Jungle / La Selva Negra will have its U.S. premiere at the Slamdance Film Festival, where it’s one of 8 feature-length documentaries in competition!
Out of 11 feature narratives and 8 docs in competition, 8 are directorial debuts by women filmmakers. Yeah Slamdance Film Festival! You go, girls!
The announcement of the films in competition has been covered by IndieWire, FilmButton, Film Pulse, Cargo Collective, and Variety. The Modern Jungle has been covered by This Funktional, The Abstract News, and Cinema Tropical.
The website for THE MODERN JUNGLE (in English) / LA SELVA NEGRA (en español) ya quedó!
We’re smitten with our latest festival selections: In December, Saul and I will present the film alongside Juan, Carmen, and others from the Zoque community at FICSC in Chiapas! Then our film’s headed to Tehran for the documentary festival Cinéma Vérité!