The Rooftop Films 2008 Summer Series

The beauty and melancholy of Latin America are intertwined in documentaries from Colombia and Peru.

Venue: on the roof of El Museo Del Barrio
Address: 1230 Fifth Avenue @ 104th Street (East Harlem)
Directions: 6 to 103rd St. or 2/3 to 110th St.
Rain: In the event of rain the show will be held indoors at the same location
8:00PM: Doors open
8:30PM: Sound Fix presents live music by Yerbbauena
9:00PM: Films
Presented in partnership with: IFC.com, New York magazine, and El Museo del Barrio

PROGRAM NOTES:
La Corona y Alguna Tristeza (Short Films)

Rooftop Films organized the first ever screenings on the roof of El Museo Del Barrio in 2007 and we are proud to return there this summer to present three more screenings atop their beautiful building. Since its founding in 1969, El Museo del Barrio has evolved into New York’s leading Latino cultural institution, having expanded its mission to represent the diversity of art and culture in all of the Caribbean and Latin America.

Befitting the location, all of our shows at El Museo Del Barrio will highlight the work being done by Latino filmmakers and artists as well as issues relating to life in and around El Barrio. On July 11th, we will be presenting two profound and accomplished documentaries that display the alternately wistful and enthusiastic dreams of a few troubled citizens of Latin America.

For better and for worse, the varied peoples of Latin America are bound by a common, turbulent history—that of colonization by the nations of Europe and cynical manipulation by the United States, twin afflictions which have stymied national and class unity and interfered with the potential for the men and women of the region to take pride in their lives and culture. Both of the documentaries in this program speak to these imprisoned hopes in different, but equally beautiful and uplifting ways: one is a brilliantly poetic sketchbook and travelogue about a trip through the mountains of Peru; the other an inverted success story about an annual beauty pageant in one of Colombia’s women prisons. The producers of these two films do not attempt to offer answers or propose solutions to the regions myriad problems, but neither do they exhibit lack of hope for the future. In the end, the willfulness of the subjects and the sheer beauty of these works make the same case for optimism: even in times of despair, we contain within ourselves the capacity to find some kind of loveliness within the struggle.

Click on the films below to read descriptions, rate them, add them to your calendar, etc.