Spring is almost here! And with it aluCine will bring the best in Latin film and media art. Toronto can look forward to shaking off the winter blues with a Latin celebration!
Join aluCine in a special celebration of aluCine’s Quinceañera, their 15th anniversary! This year’s festival will be filled with all of the fun, flavour and excitement that a Quinceañera party has to offer. Films will be running from Thursday, April 2nd to Sunday, April 5th. This year’s festival will shine a spotlight on the best of Latin Canadian contemporary cinema and media arts, 15 years of bringing vibrant Latin culture to Toronto. aluCine will feature opening and closing galas, international film premieres, two contemporary art exhibitions, performances, artist talks and industry panel series!
Festival Highlights
**ALL FILMS TO BE SCREENED WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES**
THURSDAY, APRIL 2ND
Opening Gallery Exhibition
Beaver Hall Gallery – 6:00 pm
An examination of the elements of feeling and emotion in media arts as a means to disrupt the homogenous and immersive space of the mediatic and virtual realms. Artist in attendance by Sojin Chun (Canada) and Nelly César Marín (Mexico). Featuring Christian Janowski’s Crying for the March of Humanity, 2012, one channel video installation https://vimeo.com/groups/151657/videos/53704483
Opening Gala Screening: Alejandro Jodorowsky’s A Dance of Reality
Jackman Hall (AGO) – 9:00 pm
Cannes 2013 Official Selection, A Dance of Reality, opens this years festival. Produced and directed by celebrated Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky, the Dance of Reality reflects Jodorowsky’s philosophy that reality is not objective but rather a “dance” created by our own imaginations.
FRIDAY, APRIL 3RD
Curator & Artists Talk
Beaver Hall Gallery – 3:30 pm
Curating and Creating the Diaspora – Learn how the various dimensions of the experience of diaspora in its intersections with identity and multiple forms of contemporary mobility have affected global film and media productions.
Special Focus on Cuban Diasporic Filmmakers in Canada
Various programs – Friday 6:00 pm and Saturday 2:30 pm, 4:00 pm
Over a million Canadians visit Cuba every year, making it the Island’s most frequent tourists. Thus, many of their perceptions of “Cuban-ness” are linked to tropical stereotypes related to the commercial tourist industry that promotes sun, beaches, palm trees, nice tobacco, delicious rum and friendly people as the signature traits of Cuban culture and society. The films included in this program unsettle those labels and offer a different picture of Cuban audiovisual culture. Over 350,000 Cubans have become permanent residents of Canada in recent years. Family reunion, exchange student programs, and participation in cultural events have been ways through which many Cubans have increased in numbers in the most northern nation of the continent.
Fantasmas Cromáticos: The Films of Claudio Caldini *North American Premiere*
Jackman Hall (AGO) – 7:30 pm
Artist in Attendance, Q&A Following Screening
Claudio Caldini is one of the most important experimental filmmakers in Argentina. He began making films during the 1970s at a time of great political upheaval, yet he was able to work amongst a community of filmmakers like Narcisa Hirsch and Marielouise Allemann that formed a creative network of like-minded artists. That creative milieu became a touchstone for Argentina’s vibrant filmmaking scene, a scene that Caldini has continually influenced through his prolific filmmaking output and a legendary and long-standing Super 8 workshop series in Buenos Aires.
Noche Macabra
CineCycle – 11:00 pm
A midnight feature of Macabra Cinema—horror shorts that will leave you on the edge of your seat. Make sure you bring a friend to keep you from leaping out of your seat and to help you party the night away once the screenings are done!
SATURDAY, APRIL 4
Industry Panel I: Latin Canadian Film Co-Production
Beaver Hall Gallery – 12:20 pm
Includes brunch!
Canada is considered one of the most proficient co-production partners, holding co-production treaties with over 55 countries, 13 in Latin America. As part of aluCine’s mandate, and in celebration of its 15th anniversary, we are hosting a co-production panel that will introduce local filmmakers to how co-production treaties work and how to better use their resources. With a selection of guests from all sectors of the industry we hope to give participants an overview of the requisites and steps to follow for a successful co-production endeavour.
Bittersweet – Queer Program
Jackman Hall, (AGO) – 6:00 pm
Sexual difference can lead to bitter situations, but can also become something funny. The films presented in this program speak of transformation and resilience, with enough humor needed to address the usual family disapproval or the contradictions of a sweet happy ending.
The Hand That Feeds
Award Winning Documentary, Canadian Premiere
Jackman Hall, (AGO) – 9:30 pm
At a popular deli on New York’s Upper East Side, customers get bagels and coffee served with a smile 24 hours a day. But behind the scenes, undocumented immigrant workers face sub-legal wages, dangerous machinery, and abusive managers. In one rollercoaster year they must overcome a shocking betrayal and a two-month lockout. Lawyers will battle in backroom negotiations, Occupy Wall Street protesters will take over the restaurant, and a picket line will divide the neighborhood. If they can win a contract, it will set a historic precedent for low-wage workers across the country. But whatever happens, Mahoma and his compañeros won’t be exploited again.
SUNDAY, APRIL 5
Industry Panel II: Fifteen Years of “Latinidad” in Canadian Media Arts
Beaver Hall Gallery – 3:00 pm
As part of our 15th anniversary we will to reflect more deeply on the origins and impact not only of our own local media artists productions, but also of the entire Latin Canadian film production from the past 15 years. The panel will cover topics that reflect on the last 15 years of independent media arts production by Latin Canadian artists, and will also consider the contexts for the future.
Festival Awards and Closing Party
Valdez Restaurant, Sunday April 5 – 11:00 pm
We will celebrate our festival and close it in style with a presentation of awards and a festival party at Valdez Restaurant. Join us for the best street Latin food, music and all night dancing!
OFF SCREEN SPECIAL PROGRAMS
My Own Skin – Heidi Hassan Photographic Exhibition
April 2nd – 16th – Beaver Hall Gallery
A selection of self-portraits by the artist expanding from 2000 to 2014 is chosen to describe the processes of her visual development. As she does in her films, Hassan portraits herself in diverse sceneries where women’s stories of identity politics, performativity, domestic life, gender violence, power relations, memories and family are central. Heidi Hassan (Havana, 1978) is a Cuban photographer cinematographer and film director who entered the film world through the still image.
Multimedia Performance By Gricel Severino
“Venezuela En Mis Venas/ Through My Veins”
Saturday, April 11, 6:30pm – Beaver Hall Gallery
“February is usually the shortest month. This time, it chose to be the cruelest month of the calendar.” An immigrant woman perceives chaos in her country through the social media network, and her body reacts to constant information, created by the many tags. “Today I got up so tormented, as usual, trying to know who I am.”
In Conversation With Teresa Ascencao
April 16, 2015 – 6:30 pm – Beaver Hall Gallery
Teresa Ascencao will present her work methodology and discuss aesthetic and concepts behind her work as well as the technical component of her pieces. The presentation intends to re-view the dialogue between artists and audience; it will give the audience, artists, and public their own moment on participation and creation.
For more information/locations/tickets: http://alucinefestival.com/