Directed by Martika Ramirez Escobar | Philippines | 99 mins

Set in Manila between fantasy and reality, Leonor Will Never Die is a self-referential homage to Filipino action flicks of the 1970s and 80s with an unassuming auntie as its hero. Leonor Reyes, a grieving mother and retired filmmaker, is knocked unconscious by a television set and enters the melodramatic world of her unfinished script. While witnessing her story unfold, Leonor attempts to fix the regrets of her past and write her happy ending. Meanwhile, her son Rudy desperately tries to bring her back to reality. 

Over-the-top, offbeat, and genre-bending, the film is a perfect escape into the limitless chaos of the Filipino imagination.

Leonor Will Never Die is Martika Ramirez Escobar’s debut feature. The film earned her Sundance Film Festival's World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Innovative Spirit in 2022.

In Tagalog (Filipino) with English subtitles.

Part of our ongoing Contemporary World Cinema Series. Presented in collaboration with FascinAsian Film Festival and Fiesta Filipino.

Partners:

In the spirit of respect, reciprocity and truth, we honour and acknowledge that this screening takes place on Moh’kinsstis and the traditional Treaty 7 territory, as well as the oral practices of the Blackfoot confederacy: Siksika, Kainai, Piikani as well as the Îyâxe Nakoda and Tsuut’ina nations. We acknowledge that this territory is home to the Métis Nation of Alberta, Region 3 within the historical Northwest Métis homeland. Finally, we acknowledge all Nations, Indigenous and non, who live, work and play, as well as help steward this land, honour and celebrate this territory.

Directed by Juan Pablo González | Mexico | 99 mins

Part of our ongoing Contemporary World Cinema Series

Winner of a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, Dos Estaciones follows iron-willed businesswoman María García (Teresa Sánchez), the owner of Dos Estaciones, a once-majestic tequila factory now struggling to stay afloat. The factory is the final holdover from generations of Mexican-owned tequila plants in the highlands of Jalisco, the rest having folded to foreign corporations. Once one of the wealthiest people in town, María knows her current financial situation is untenable. When a persistent plague and an unexpected flood cause irreversible damage, she is forced to do everything she can to save her community's primary economy and source of pride.

In the spirit of respect, reciprocity and truth, we honour and acknowledge that this screening takes place on Moh’kinsstis and the traditional Treaty 7 territory, as well as the oral practices of the Blackfoot confederacy: Siksika, Kainai, Piikani as well as the Îyâxe Nakoda and Tsuut’ina nations. We acknowledge that this territory is home to the Métis Nation of Alberta, Region 3 within the historical Northwest Métis homeland. Finally, we acknowledge all Nations, Indigenous and non, who live, work and play, as well as help steward this land, honour and celebrate this territory.

Dir. Sébastien Betbeder | 2013 | 93min

Arman is 33 and ready to make a change, starting with a run in the park. When he literally bumps into Amélie - slightly cynical but nevertheless lovely - on the jogging path, he's dead-set on making a connection with her. As a bit of contrived fate brings them together, Arman's best friend Benjamin suffers an unexpected stroke, relegating him to the hospital for weeks where he falls for his doting young physical therapist. Over the course of two autumns and three winters, Arman, Amélie and Benjamin share the incidental moments, unexpected accidents, unconventional love stories and unforgettable memories that will define who they are.

Dir. Raya Martin, Mark Peranson | 2013 | 88min

A filmmaker (Alex Ross Perry), along with his local guide (Gabino Rodríguez), traverse the Yucatán in the days leading up to the “end of the world” with the idea of making his last movie. They look at possible locations, journeying to Chichen Itza on December 21, encountering a surrealistic gathering of New Agers and Mayan mystics. They meet a local TV reporter (Iazua Larios), who the filmmaker casts in his psychedelic Western. After the film is shot, the misunderstood and egomaniacal filmmaker decides to remain in Mexico, editing his masterpiece, forever.

Dir: DENIS CÔTÉ | 2014 | 70min | Canada

An open-ended exploration of the energies and rituals of various workplaces. From one worker to another and one machine to the next; hands, faces, breaks, toil: what kind of absurdist, abstract dialogue can be started between human beings and their need to work? What is the value of the time we spend multiplying and repeating the same motions that ultimately lead to a rest – a state of repose whose quality defies definition.

DIR MYROSLAV SLABOSHPYTSKIY | 2014 | UKRAINE | 132 MIN

One of the year’s most provocative films, The Tribe garnered three awards, including the Grand Prix, from Cannes 2014.  Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy’s feature debut is truly original, illuminating the world of the deaf without the use of dialogue or subtitles.

“Somewhere in Ukraine, Sergey enters a specialized boarding school for the deaf. Alone in this new and unfamiliar place, he must find his way through the school's hierarchy. Sergey quickly encounters the tribe, a student gang dealing in crime and prostitution. After passing their hazing rituals and being inducted into the group, he takes part in several robberies and begins to work his way up the chain of command to become pimp-protector for two of the girls, who turn tricks at the local truck stop. Finding himself in love with one of them, Sergey ultimately breaks all the unwritten rules of the tribe, with tragic consequences.” (c) Drafthouse

The trailer contains some nudity.

Jafar Panahi and Kambozia Partovi
2014 | Iran | 106 Minutes | DCP

Acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi bravely defies his 20-year ban on filmmaking yet again, and stunningly, he has created a masterpiece that not only lives up to his earlier, pre-ban work but surpasses it in many ways. In a secluded house by the sea with the curtains shut, a screenwriter hides from the world with only his dog as company. The tranquility is abruptly broken one night by the arrival of a young woman fleeing from the authorities. Refusing to leave, she takes refuge in the house. But come dawn, another unexpected presence will change everything.
FEATURING Kambozia Partovi, Maryam Moqada

Director Ming-liang Tsai | 2013

138 Min | DCP | The Plaza

A father and his two children wander the margins of modern day Taipei, from the woods and rivers of the outskirts to the rain streaked streets of the city. By day the father scrapes out a meager income as a human billboard for luxury apartments, while his young son and daughter roam the supermarkets and malls surviving off free food samples. Each night the family takes shelter in an abandoned building. The father is strangely affected by a hypnotic mural adorning the wall of this makeshift home. On the day of the father's birthday the family is joined by a woman-might she be the key to unlocking the buried emotions that linger from the past?

Carlos Reygadas | 2012 | 120 Min

POST TENEBRAS LUX ("light after darkness") is the Cannes Film Festival prize winner that follows an upscale Mexican family whose move to the countryside in search of an ideal life results in domestic crisis and class friction. Stunningly photographed, the film is an enthralling and enigmatic exploration of the primal conflicts of the human condition.

Bio - Carlos Reygadas

Born in Mexico City in 1971, Carlos Reygadas was a lawyer in Mexico, specializing in armed conflict issues in London.  He worked for the United Nations before starting his film career. He returned to Mexico in 2000 to shoot his first feature film, Japón (Japan), which garnered international attention for its startling content and magnificent aesthetics. Japón’s raw depiction of sex and human frailty within a uniquely Mexican context grew into Reygadas’s fully fledged style with his second feature film, Batalla en el cielo (Battle in Heaven, 2005), which competed for the Palm d’Or and won several other international prizes. His third film Stellet Licht (Silent Light, 2007) pushed the familiar themes and aesthetics of his previous work onto new, breathtaking ground and won prestigious prizes across the globe, cementing Reygadas’s reputation as both a leader of contemporary Mexican cinema and a central auteur on the global art cinema stage. 

Reygadas has further cultivated the current renaissance of Mexican cinema by producing a number of notable films by other burgeoning Mexican directors, contributing a short film to the 2010 compilation Revolución and completing — 2012’s Post Tenebras Lux, which earned him the Best Director prize at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. Text from High Museum of Art Atlanta