Cinema Tropical Celebrates Its 20th Anniversary Announcing Special Online Programming And Events

Cinema Tropical, the leading presenter of Latin American cinema in the U.S., is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a series of special events and programming that kicks off on March 31 and extends through the fall of 2021 and will be available to audiences across the U.S., and internationally.

The festivities of the 20th anniversary begin on March 31 with the 6th edition of "Neighboring Scenes: New Latin American Cinema," the annual festival of recent Latin American film presented by Film at Lincoln Center and Cinema Tropical. This year, the festival's lineup will be available to stream for the first time to audiences nationwide. Opening night features the Brazilian film All the Dead Ones, directed by Marco Dutra and Caetano Gotardo, and will include a conversation with both directors.

Featuring nine recent films from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, and Peru, "Neighboring Scenes" will also present a special restoration of the landmark Argentine film Silvia Prieto by Martín Rejtman, which was the first film Cinema Tropical screened, in February 2001, at the Pioneer Theater in downtown Manhattan, and marked the kickoff of the organization.

Cinema Tropical will also launch "TropiChat 20," a special series of twenty weekly conversations with key Latin American and U.S. Latinx directors and film professionals. The series will kick off on Tuesday, April 6 with a special conversation with Rejtman, who is one of the key figures of the New Argentine Cinema of the late nineties and early aughts, a major source of inspiration and insight for the Latin American film renaissance that followed.

Other confirmed guests for "TropiChat 20" include Academy Award-nominated director Lourdes Portillo, acclaimed director Matías Piñeiro, double Sundance winner Natalia Almada, and Academy Award-nominated documentarian Maite Alberdi. Additional speakers will be announced soon.

Cinema Tropical's anniversary programming will also include a special online film and conversation series "Mexico on the Hudson," celebrating the relationship between New York City and Mexico through the success of recent films including I'm No Longer Here by Fernando Frías, I Carry You With Me by Heidi Ewing, Son of Monarchs by Alexis Gambis, and En el Séptimo Día by Jim McKay. The series will take place in June, and is co-presented by the CUNY Mexican Studies Institute.

The festivities will continue through the second half of the year, with a specially curated anniversary film series being planned in partnership with the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), plus other special events that will be announced at a later date.

"These past two decades of the existence of Cinema Tropical have coincided with an unparalleled cinema renaissance throughout Latin America. We've been so honored to have accompanied this great production throughout these years, and help in creating an audience for it in the U.S.," says Carlos A. Gutiérrez, co-founding executive director of Cinema Tropical.

Cinema Tropical's 20th anniversary events are co-presented with the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) at New York University. For over a decade, CLACS has been a key partner of Cinema Tropical, creating a direct connection between Latin American cinema and the academic world.

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