4th Edition of The Americas Film Festival of New York to Open 6/8

The fourth edition of The Americas Film Festival of New York (TAFFNY), June 8-16, 2017, showcases feature films in fiction and documentary as well as shorts and animations that represent the rich diversity of cultures, languages and stories of the Americas.

About the festival, Dr. Juan Carlos Mercado, Dean of CWE, explains: "Thanks to the extraordinary success of past festivals, The Americas Film Festival of New York is back for its fourth edition- this year running a whole week and closing with our Awards Ceremony for our shorts in competition. The Festival aims to provide a dynamic space for the public and artists to meet and reflect on multiculturalism and diversity in our society."

The Festival begins Thursday June 8th, 6:00pm, at the Instituto Cervantes (211 East 49th Street)with the New York premiere of J: Beyond Flamenco (La Jota) directed and presented by legendary Spanish director Carlos Saura, who captures the vivacity and charisma of the "Jota,"a walts-like castanet dance of Spanish origin. Preceding the screening will be a conversation between Saura and Richard Peña, Professor of Film and former Director of the New York Film Festival, on Saura's prolific filmography. The evening wraps up with a cocktail reception in the courtyard of Instituto Cervantes.
TAFFNY closes on Friday June 16th, 6pm, with the Awards Ceremony of The Americas Short Films Competition at the National Museum of the American Indian (1 Bowling Green), followed by the New York premiere of Angry Inuk, an award-winning and deftly realized documentary that re-contextualizes the role and ethics of activism in anti seal hunting campaigns. Director Alethea Arnaquq-Baril (Inuk) will be present to lead a Q&A after the screening.

"The driving force behind this year's program is "the Americas" as a region both imagined and lived. The films that comprise TAFFNY 2017 attest to the uniqueness of personal stories and different cultures while affirming the underlying qualities of a regional cinema and illustrating a comprehensive cultural picture of what makes the territory so complex and fascinating," says Artistic Director Diana Vargas.
The Americas Short Film Competition is exclusively dedicated to the promotion and exhibition of short-length audiovisual works by emerging filmmakers. The Festival's competition will showcase films with a maximum length of 17 minutes that portray contemporary concerns of filmmakers living in the region. This year, TAFFNY screens 49 short films in competition for The Americas Award in the categories of Animation, Documentary, Experimental, and Fiction. Judging the categories of Documentary and Animation are Álvaro Baquero-Pecino, Assistant Professor of World Languages and Literatures at CUNY; Cynthia Benitez, Film Programming Manager at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of the American Indian; and Emmy award winning TV producer Wilson Reyes. Judging the categories of Fiction and Experimental are Juan Zapata, acclaimed Colombian filmmaker; Kevin Moore, independent advisor, curator, and writer; and Michelle Farrell, Assistant Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Fairfield University.

The Americas Panorama is an exciting program that will bring the richness of the cultures of The Americas through eleven award winning, feature-length films in fiction and documentary. The films reflect the multiplicity of stories and identities that form the "American"experience, ranging from documentaries that explore the complexities of community in a globalized world to stories, both personal and social, of grief, perseverance, memory, and love. On Friday June 9th, the Festival begins at 6pm at Instituto Cervantes (211 East 49th Street) with a selection of short films in competition for The Americas Award and continues at 7pm with the N.Y. premiere of Spanish romantic comedy Nuestros Amantes, directed by Miguel Ángel Lamata, who will join us with Executive Producer Vanessa Montfort for a Q&A after the screening.

Saturday June 10th begins at 3pm at the CWE Auditorium (25 Broadway, 7 Floor) with a selection of short films in competition. At 4pm Gabo y el Cine (Gabo and Cinema), an illustrative documentary directed by Jose Luis Agraz that introduces the cinematic side of literary figureGabriel Garcia Marquez premieres in New York.

On Monday June 12th, TAFFNY moves uptown, to City College's Aaron Davis Hall, located on Convent Avenue between West 133rd and 135th Streets, to celebrate Caribbean culture with the New York Premiere of the inspirational Puerto Rican documentary, El alma del equipo (The Soul of the Team) by Ricardo Cayuela at 7:00pm, preceded by a selection of shorts in competition at 6:00pm.

Screenings start on Tuesday June 13th, at the CWE Auditorium (25 Broadway, 7 Floor) at 2:00pm with a selection of short films in competition and a 3:00pm screening of quirky Argentine comedy, Hortensia, by directors Diego Lublinsky and Alvaro Urtizebrea.Later that evening, at Instituto Cervantes, a selection of short films participating in The Americas Award competition will be shown at 6:00pm. Following is the NY premiere of Another Forever, an evocative film that follows one woman's geographic journey to overcome her grief, by director Juan Zapata. Zapata will present the film and lead a Q&A following the screening.

On Wednesday June 14th, TAFFNY comes to the Consulate of Argentina in New York (12 West 56th Street), with a showcase of short films in competition at 5:45pm. Hortensia, the comic yet altruistic story of a shoe-obsessed woman looking to subsume her grief with a new lover following the death of her taxidermist father, screens at 6:45pm.
On Thursday June 15that 2:00pm, TAFFNY returns to the CWE Auditorium for a selection of short films in competition. Following is the 3:00pm encore screening of La Jota (J: Beyond Flamenco). The Festival picks up again at 6:00pm at NYU's King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center (KJCC - 53 Washington Square South), for the final screening of short films competing for The Americas Award. Following is a double feature of two documentaries that delve into heritage, immigration, and identity: Esto que hemos heredado (What We Have Inherited) by directors Mona Herbe and Paul Fasel, and the Manhattan Premiere of Children Behind the Wall by director Marisol Gonzalez, who will join us after the screening for a Q&A.

TAFFNY is a cultural project of the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies at the Center for Worker Education of City College of New York (CUNY), in collaboration with the National Museum of the American Indian, and Instituto Cervantes. TAFFNY is made possible with the generous support of its partners and sponsors: the CCNY Division of Humanities and the Arts, the CCNY Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership, Telemundo 47, Ron Barceló, Goya Foods, Consulate General of Argentina, NYU's King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center, Cinco Jotas, Ines Rosales (Tortas de Aceite), Aceites Castillo de Canena, Begonia Sangria, Ole Imports, and Event Model Agency.

For TAFFNY information and schedule visit www.taffny.com.