Kicking off today with the premiere of The Other Tom (paired with free popcorn and sangria), the seventh edition of Neighboring Scenes, the annual wide-ranging showcase of contemporary Latin American cinema featuring established auteurs as well as fresh talent from the international festival scene, plays through Monday in the Walter Reade Theater. The selections in this yearâs slate exhibit the expansive styles, techniques, and approaches of Latin American filmmakers today, representing a wide variety of countries including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
Complimentary Tickets
As a way to say thank you for being a valuable member of the Film at Lincoln Center community, you and a guest are invited to receive complimentary tickets to select screenings in the festival. Click here to choose your films.
Programmers Preview
Listen to the programmers of the festival, Cinema Tropical’s Carlos A. GutiĂ©rrez and Cecilia Barrionuevo, dive into the diverse lineup, and highlight can’t miss films from the festivals.
Filmmaker Q&As
We’re honored to host filmmakers from around the world for special in-person introductions and Q&As. Explore the guest appearances and accompanying films below.
The Other Tom | February 24 at 7PM
 Q&A with co-director Rodrigo PlĂĄÂ
Venice Film Festival 2021- Best Film Nominee
Toronto International Film Festival 2021- Official Selection
Free sangria and popcorn will be provided to all ticket-holders before the screening!
The fifth collaboration between the Uruguayan-Mexican creative duo of Rodrigo PlĂĄ and Laura Santullo (A Monster with a Thousand Heads), based on a novel by Santullo, tells the story of Elena, a working-class single mom and her nine-year-old son, Tom, who has been diagnosed with ADHD. Elena risks losing custody when she refuses to continue medicating Tom after an accident alerts her of his treatmentâs side effects. Set in the border city of El Paso, Texas, this gripping and intimate drama is anchored by potent performances from Julia ChĂĄvez and Israel Rodriguez Bertorelli.
Medusa | February 25 at 6:15PM
 Q&A with director Anita Rocha da Silveira
Cannes Directors’ Fortnight – Official Selection
Toronto Internation Film Festival 2021 – Official Selection
AFI FEST 2021 – Official Selection
During the day a clique of female teenagers dedicate themselves to prayer, choreography, singing, and recording videos for social networks. At night, wearing white masks, they hunt down sinful women and punish them by cutting their faces, a mark of eternal damnation. Set against the darkness of night and the glow of neon lights, Anita Rocha da Silveiraâs visionary follow-up to Kill Me Please (ND/NF, 2015) reinterprets the myth of Medusa in a conservative, misogynistic, Bolsonarist Brazil. A selection of the Cannes Film Festivalâs Directorsâ Fortnight in 2021. A Music Box Films release.
“Da Silveira sets a tone that nimbly flows between comedy, mystery and discomforting satire” – Demetrious Matheou, ScreenDaily
Medusa
The Sky is Red | February 25 at 9:15PM
Introduction from The Bones‘s producer Lucas Engel
U.S. Premieres
Francina Carbonellâs powerful debut feature uses images from security cameras, archival audio, and extant documents, all part of a court filing, to narrate the story of the 2010 fire at San Miguel prison in Santiago, Chile, where 81 people died. âI feel that the officers working then executed our sons, they condemned them to death,â says a voice in one of the recordings. âA group of people who didnât open the gates at the right time, who didnât have their protocols in check, who didnât even know who was on the tower.â Through the smoke, The Sky Is Red extrapolates images, mixes temporalities, and renders the invisible visible: the daily lives of those who already lost the right to everything.
Preceded by:
The Bones / Los huesos
CristĂłbal LeĂłn and JoaquĂn Cociña, 2021, Chile, 14m
Spanish with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere
Winner of the Best Short Award at the Venice Film Festival, this animated stop-motion film narrates the unearthing of corpses for an expiatory ritual that seeks to free Chile from its authoritarian and oligarchic past.
Red Star | February 27 at 4:15PM
 Q&A with directors with SofĂa Bordenave and Jessica Sarah Rinland
International Premiere
A leading Bolshevik physician and philosopher once imagined a Communist future on Mars. This film essay by SofĂa Bordenave journeys into the past, revisiting the locations where the Russian Revolution occurred 100 years earlier, using different present-day perspectives: Katya recounts events at Saint Petersburgâs Field of Mars, while Nikita and Karl move along the rooftops of the city looking for historical traces. Red Star brings the past into the present, stopping at the moment when âthe future was infinite.â Winner of the Critics Award for Best First Film at the Mar del Plata Film Festival.
Preceded by:
Sol de Campinas
Jessica Sarah Rinland, 2021, Brazil, 26m
Portuguese with English subtitles
North American Premiere
This film brings to light the work of a group of archeologists carrying out excavations in a square in a Brazilian city. The soil and the objects move from the ground to the laboratory, fragments that hold the memory of a people.
Dirty Feathers | February 27 at 4:15PM
Introduction from producer Roberto Minervini
Berlinale – Berlin International Film Festival 2021 – Official Selection
This remarkable debut feature by Mexican-American photographer and director Carlos Alfonso Corral, produced by Italian filmmaker Roberto Minervini, is a lyrical and sensitive documentary that intimately portrays the residents of a homeless community on the U.S.-Mexico border, including a recently married couple, a grieving father, a war veteran, and a 16-year-old girl. Shot on the streets of El Paso and Ciudad Juårez in sobering black and white, this vérité-style film is a raw yet profoundly compassionate and respectful portrait of people living on the edge. A selection of the Panorama at Berlinale Film Festival in 2021.
Preceded by:
Holiday / Feriado
Azucena Losana, 2021, Brazil/Argentina/Mexico, 2m
Portuguese with English subtitles
North American Premiere
Images from Rio de Janeiro and SĂŁo Paulo filmed in 16mm are set to the words of Bruno NegrĂŁoâs poem âE se Jesus fosse preto?â
Splinters| February 27 at 6:15PM
Q&A with director Natalia Garayalde
Jeonju Film Festival 2021 – Best Film
Cinema Tropical Award – Best DocumentaryÂ
In November 1995, 12-year-old Natalia Garayalde used a camcorder to capture a major explosion at a nearby military factory in her hometown of RĂo Tercero. The accident, which destroyed part of the city, left seven people dead, injured over 300, and became a major political scandal as it exposed a cover-up: Argentinaâs sale of missiles to Croatia and Ecuador. Decades later, director Garayalde revisits that archival footage to tell a poignant story of memory, family, and history. Her potent debut feature has won numerous awards, including the Grand Prize for Best Film at the Jeonju Film Festival and the Cinema Tropical Award for Best Documentary.
Preceded by:
Light Trap / Trampa de luz
Pablo Marin, 2021, Argentina, 9m
North American Premiere
A fragment of the world offered to the light, the very essence of a life, shot on Super-8mm film. ââFire insubstantial, sacred and enclosed, earthly fragment to the light exposed.â (Paul ValĂ©ry, The Graveyard by the Sea). Winner of the Principal Online Prize at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen.
The Joy of Things| February 28 at 6:15PM
Q&A with Thais Fujinaga, Thiago MacĂȘdo Correia and Lara Lima
North American Premiere
SĂŁo Paulo International Film Festival 2021 – Best Film by a First-Time Director
During a suffocating summer, the very pregnant Paula heads off to a remote beach house with her two children and mother. Paula means to install a large pool on the property, but after the huge ditch is dug thereâs no money left to finish the project. Crises both economic and marital loom. In this debut feature, produced by acclaimed Brazilian production collective Filmes de PlĂĄstico, Thais Fujinaga portrays the routines of a middle-class family, full of broken promise, in search of escape and happiness.
Preceded by:
Dear Chantal / Querida Chantal
NicolĂĄs Pereda, 2021, Mexico/Spain, 5m
Spanish with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere
Some unanswered letters, an apartment for rent in the Mexico City neighborhood of CoyoacĂĄn, a painting that doesnât quite find its place, and reflections on cinema and life. The latest film from NYFF alum Nicolas PĂ©reda is a moving tribute to filmmaker Chantal Akerman.
The Joy of Things
Explore the full lineup and log the films you see at Neighboring Scenes on our Letterboxd.
