SIP Film Fest 2019

Please join us from September 26-29 for the third annual Film Fest, taking place on Grounds and in downtown Charlottesville. This year's theme is "Visual Narratives of Diversity, Displacement, and Inclusion from the Mediterranean and Latin America.” All films will be free and open to the public, and they will be screened in their original languages with English subtitles.

The SIP FilmFest has been made possible thanks to the generous contributions of the College of Arts and Sciences (Diversity and Inclusion Grant), the UVA Arts Fund for Artistic Excellence, the Latin American Studies Program, the Department of Women, Gender & Sexuality, the Institute of World Languages, the UVA Library, and the Department of Spanish, Italian & Portuguese. 

Link: SIPfilmfest2019

Please read below for the full program, with information on venues, descriptions of the films, and links to trailers.

SIP FilmFest2019 Organizing Committee:

Lilian Feitosa
David Flórez-Murillo
Esperanza Górriz Jarque
Hiromi Kaneda
Alicia López-Operé
Esther Poveda Moreno
Paula Sprague
Matthew Street
Zaida Villanueva García
 

Thursday, September 26

5:00 p.m. Welcoming reception

Films: Timecode (Juanjo Giménez Peña, Spain, 2018; 15min) & Hotel explotación: Las Kellys (Georgina Cisquella, Spain, 2018; 55min). G (General Audiences)

Location: Newcomb Hall Theater, 180 McCormick Road, Charlottesville, VA. University of Virginia

  • 5-6 p.m. Reception
  • 6:00 p.m. Opening Remarks by Professor Samuel Amago, Chair of the Department of Spanish, Italian & Portuguese, University of Virginia 
  • 6:15 Introduction to the films by Professor Erin K. Hogan, University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) 
  • 6:30 Short film, feature film and discussion  

Timecode. Luna and Diego are the parking lot security guards. Diego works the night shift, and Luna works by day. One day, the investigation of a broken tail light leads them to an unexpected finding. Trailer

Las Kellys. More than 200,000 women work as maids in the hospitality sector in Spain. Their work is fundamental and yet they are invisible to the guests and the common public. Two years ago, in October 2016, the so called "Kellys" (a colloquial expression from Spanish "las que limpian"/those who clean) decided to organize to claim their rights. While globalizing imperatives has left them without rights, their organizing activities have raised within them a new feminist consciousness and made it clear that they are struggling against a gender-based exploitation. Trailer

Friday, September 27

4:00 p.m. "Fatal Ambition in La noche que mi madre mató a mi padre (Inés París 2016)." A talk by Erin K. Hogan, Associate Professor of Spanish at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC)

Location: TBA

Description: La noche que mi madre mató a mi padre is a thesis comedy by Inés París, the founder and former president of an advocacy group for women in the Spanish audiovisual industry, that follows its fifty-year-old actress protagonist’s clandestine audition in order to illuminate a number of obstacles facing women in show business. This talk will explore how París’ depiction of the femme fatale deviates from that of her forefathers to defy misconceptions of women’s ambition and to celebrate women’s professional fulfillment.

8:00 p.m. Los silencios / Silences (Beatriz Seigner, Colombia / Brazil / France, 2018; 88min). G (General Audiences)

Location: Vinegar Hill Theater, 121 E Water Street, Charlottesville, VA

  • 8:00 p.m. Introduction to the film by Ms. Mathilda Shepard, Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, University of Virginia 
  • 8:10 p.m. Film and discussion

A heady sensibility co-exists with a prosaic naturalism in much the same way that the ghosts of those lost in the conflict in Colombia walk among the living. This drama portrays a family fleeing the violence in their hometown. Amparo and her two children, Nuria and Fabio, arrive by night to an island where they seek refuge with Amparo’s aunt. Their adoptive community has had to learn to live with the ebb and flow of the Amazon River, which regularly floods their homes. Amparo’s Brazilian husband, Adam, is missing, but then one day he reappears in the family’s new home. Trailer

Saturday, September 28

2:00 p.m. Il Vizio della speranza / The Vice of Hope (Edoardo De Angelis, Italy, 2018; 96min).  PG-13 – Parents Strongly Cautioned

Location: Wilson Hall 402, 115 Ruppel Dr Charlottesville, VA. University of Virginia

Daughter of an alienated mother and right hand of a heroin addict, Maria ferries poor souls on the Volturno River. Most of them are Nigerian prostitutes who rent their uterus to survive and fatten their miserable mistress. The area of Castel Volturno, outside Naples, is known for being the most lawless place in Italy, one where poverty and misery drive people to incredible ways to struggle for survival. The protagonist’s (María) suffering and faith in a mother's love, offers a reflection on maternity and on what can make someone “feel human” in such a desolate atmosphere. Trailer

8:00 p.m. Praça Paris / Paris Square (Lúcia Murat, Brazil, 2017. 110min). PG-13 – Parents Strongly Cautioned

Location: Vinegar Hill Theater, 121 E Water Street, Charlottesville, VA

  • 8:00 p.m. Introduction to the film TBA. 
  • 8:10 p.m. Film and discussion

This thriller reveals the conflict between a Portuguese psychoanalyst, Camila, who goes to Brazil to carry out research on violence. There, in a Therapy Center of a Brazilian university (UERJ) she works with a patient named Glória, a woman from Rio de Janeiro who is trying to move on with her life despite the traumas caused by an abusive father and a drug-dealer brother. She works as an elevator attendant at the university. Gloria feels that the only person she has in the world is her brother, who always protected her but was also drug lord of the slum where they live. In these relationships, the fear of the other ends up dominating Camila. Trailer

Sunday, September 29

2:00 p.m. Tesoros / Treasures (María Novaro, Mexico, 2017. 95min). G (General Audiences)

Location: Wilson Hall 402, 115 Ruppel Dr Charlottesville, VA. University of Virginia

Jacinta (6 years old) tells a story that begins when "the white kids - los güeros-" (Dylan, 6, Andrea, 11, and Lucas, 2 ½ years old) arrive in Barra de Potosí, a fishing community on the coast of Guerrero, Mexico. With the local children, they assemble a band of kids convinced that together, and armed with a tablet, some clues, legends, and the right map, they can find a treasure that the pirate Francis Drake hid in the region four centuries earlier. With colorful and exciting images, these children, guided by their own intelligence and curiosity, find the space of freedom indispensable for discovering something much more valuable than a treasure chest, one that leads us to a world of optimism, solidarity and imagination. Trailer