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Ambulante: Gira de Documentales 2006
Initiated by rising film stars Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, ‘Ambulante: Gira de Documentales 2006,’ is a national tour which will be screening 19 contemporary documentaries, both national and international, up and down the country. The programme will be screened at Cinépolis in Oaxaca between the 24th and 30th March. Mexican hot-shots García Bernal (Motorcycle Diaries, Amores Perros, Y tu mamá también) aged 27 and Luna (Sólo Dios Sabe, The Terminal, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights) aged 26 may well have been picked up by Hollywood talent scouts and more importantly by some of the world´s most talented independent film directors, but they have certainly not forgotten where they come from. Whilst fulfilling pressing work schedules, they have spent the last half year promoting this recently initiated project. Set up by Canana Films in cooperation with the popular multiplex chain Cinépolis and the Festival Internacional de Cine de Morelia, the organisers of the Ambulante tour say one of its main aims is “to put members of the public in contact with national talent they may not yet be familiar with as well as filling the existing gap within current commercial distribution.” Ambulante hopes this carefully chosen set of documentaries will reach a new audience of viewers, give life to up-and-coming projects, as well as uniting artists, musicians and cineastes with the general public by offering an altogether different cinema-going experience. As well as providing entertainment, García Bernal (pictured) hopes that the chosen documentaries will “arouse dialogue, create controversy and mobilize the public mind to find a new way of perceiving reality that goes beyond the limits of current physical and mental boundaries.” During last year`s Cine Morelia festival, Luna noted that in a country which doesn’t have a huge cinematic output of its own, Mexican documentaries are very relevant. He explained that the tour initially came about as an idea for a way of promoting the award-winning documentary Tropic of Cancer, an exploration of various families who survive by hunting animals which they sell on the freeway, which García Bernal was very keen to support. A major part of the programming has been dedicated to Mexican documentary, with the aim of giving a platform to the up-till-now, very much under-promoted national talent in this genre. Included within the programme, which is made up of 12 Mexican and 7 international documentaries, is first-time filmmaker Tin Dirdamal´s deNADIE, which won the Audience Award for Documentary at this year’s Sundance film festival but has still not received commercial distribution in Mexico. Dirdamal, 24, was born in Monterrey and has been involved in several human rights activities, including an immigrant project in Veracruz and an educational project with the Tarahumaras, an endangered indigenous group in northern Mexico. With photographic grace and a sophisticated understanding of his subjects Dirdamal displays moving footage of his subjects as they search for the sustenance their native countries can’t provide, facing the same intimidation and corruptive danger in Mexico as they will eventually find north of the border in the United States, when and if they ever get there. While exposing hypocrisies in Mexican culture and without taking a political stance, deNADIE confronts the viewer with a story of immigration we only thought we understood. Other documentaries, which will be screened as part of the cycle, include
Grizzly Man by Werner Herzog, the story of Timothy Treadwell’s sensational life
living among the grizzly bears of the Alsakan wilderness. XV en
Zaachila by Rigoberto
Perezcanois set in a town with: a family, a daughter, a bull to be killed, eight
godfathers, a party that lasts 2 days plus 850 guests ... all for one girl´s
quinceñera. Vanessa Gray |
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