Puerto Rico is the oldest colony in the world, a territorial possession ceded to the United States after it invaded the islands in 1898 during the Spanish American War, or in the words of Rita Indiana: ‘a social experiment full of contradictions’. In 1917, Puerto Ricans were imposed US citizenship; by 1970, New York City’s Puerto Rican population reached its zenith, making Puerto Ricans the city’s largest ‘minority’ population during that decade. Puerto Rican contributions to the city of New York are far and varied, from bodegas to salsa, from the Young Lords to Spanish being taught in elementary schools, from Pedro Pietri’s poetry and the Nuyorican movement to Hip-Hop, from Puerto Ricans involvement in Communist and Socialist parties to their contributions to the city via co-op buildings and social clubs forming close social webs. La Bodega Sold Dreams seeks to uncover the cultural legacy of Puerto Ricans in the city by presenting a body of films that captured the sentiment, makeup and preoccupations of displaced Puerto Ricans living in the U.S. metropolis. This series dabbles with the constructions edified by both outsiders and insiders of the Puerto Rican diaspora, during two decades where Puerto Ricans were demonized for anything including being unclassifiable, minding your business, and bombing the Defense Department in Madison Avenue in support for Puerto Rican Independence.

Programmed in collaboration with Caroline Gil. Special thanks to Larry Revene, Carlos de Jesus, Robert B. Young, Diego Echeverria, XFR Collective and David E. Wilt.

LA TIGRESA
dir. Glauco del Mar, 1969
85 mins. United States.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27 – MIDNIGHT
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 30 – 7:30 PM

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Glauco del Mar’s penultimate film LA TIGRESA is perhapsx his most accomplished, yet far less popular than his apogee, 1975’s TONO BICICLETA. It is in this bewilderingly feminist redemption narrative that we meet Patricia, a young woman living with her father, who is mercilessly ullied by her schoolmates, assaulted and raped in her home and is left with no resolve. Her alcoholic good-for-nothing father is killed during her attack. After inheriting some money and recovering her personal power, she sets off to avenge every single last person that did her wrong – making her list, and checking it twice. This classic redemption tale combines the amazing Perla Faith a legendary vedette with espiritismo, folklore, Miguel Poventud’s jangly guitar boleros, corrupt cops, and entrancing Harlem landscapes.

YE YO
dir. Tony Betancourt, 1975
79 mins. United States/Puerto Rico.
In Spanish.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 – MIDNIGHT
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 30 – 10 PM

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Puerto Ricans were imposed U.S. citizenship in 1917 via the Jones-Shafroth Act. Lore recounts that Puerto Ricans were given citizenship so that they could be discharged as cannon fodder for the First World War and all succeeding wars that the U.S. engaged in thereafter. Produced by Changó International Films and shot by the prolific adult film cinematographer Larry Revene, YE YO tells the story of Rogelio Sotomayor, a Vietnam veteran and former prisoner of war with PTSD who returns to New York after the war. Upon his return he finds his wife Nydia with a lover and murders them. In an epic, days-long run-off from corrupt cops, Ye Yo relies on his community for cover in this Blaxploitation inspired drama.

YE YO is screening with English subtitles for the first time in the United States, translated by Aida Garrido and timed by Garret Linn.

SHORT EYESdir. Robert M. Young, 1977
100 mins. United States.
In English.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 – 5 PM
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28 – 10 PM

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“I don’t know how much of a human being I would be if I met you on the sidewalk.”

Adapted by poet Miguel Piñero from his play of the same name, SHORT EYES is closely based on his experiences incarcerated at Sing Sing after an armed robbery charge. Robert M. Young (ALAMBRISTA!) shot the film on location in the infamous Tombs, on White Street, while the prison was fully operational; the plot follows a gang of Black and Puerto Rican inmates figuring out what to do with a bourgeois white inmate named Clark (Bruce Davidson, making his big screen debut) who has been accused of raping an underage girl. “Short Eyes” is the in-prison nickname for pederasts, and Piñero’s screenplay doesn’t hold back in dissecting the dog-eat-dog culture among the inmates – several of whom have designs on Clark, who they consider the lowest of the low. A flawlessly executed ensemble piece buttressed by a silky-yet-menacing Curtis Mayfield soundtrack, SHORT EYES is a gripping and surprisingly even-handed look at life behind bars, widely considered one of the greatest prison films ever made. Young’s compassionate realism and focus on authenticity is a perfect match for Piñero, who also acts in the film (as do Mayfield and Freddy Fender, in bit parts), and whose run-ins with law enforcement would continue during and after production.

(SHORT EYES will screen with a 17-minute clip of Miguel Piñero reading at Magic Gallery in 1984, preserved and digitized thanks to XFR Collective.)

NATAS ES SATAN
dir. Miguel Ángel Álvarez, 1977
89 mins. United States.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28 – MIDNIGHT

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Best known for his comic persona “El Men” back in Puerto Rico, Miguel Ángel Álvarez delivers a blood-curdling performance in the lurid 1977 exploitation thriller NATAS ES SATAN, as an NYPD officer who is literally the devil (re)incarnate. (Screenwriter Joe Zayas based his sordid tale of blackmail and murder on true events.) Despite being Satan, Natás is also a surprisingly plausible supervillain, at one point enacting vengeance on his enemy, a businessman named Victor (Frank Moro), by hiring a “double” (played by Moro again) to put him in a compromising position. Like LA TIGRESA, this film was shot entirely en español on location in Manhattan; while the dramatic stakes are small, NATAS ES SATAN succeeds as both a crime procedural and a hysterical psychodrama. Long before Natas has invited three transgender assassins over to his place to murder Victor during a DIY porn screening, you’ll agree the end product also feels not unlike an artifact from an alternate universe. Stay alert…. Natas may return!

NATAS ES SATAN is screening with English subtitles for the first time in the United States, translated by Aida Garrido and timed by Garret Linn.

LA BODEGA SOLD DREAMS: SHORTS 1968-1980
dirs. Various
approx. 90 mins.
In English and Spanish with English subtitles.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 – 7:30 PM w/THE DEVIL IS A CONDITION filmmaker Carlos de Jesus in person for Q&A!
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27 – 10 PM

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Bracketed by two short TV documentaries – PUERTO RICO: A COLONY THE AMERICAN WAY, and THE DEVIL IS A CONDITION – this program looks at depictions of both Puerto Rican and Nuyorican culture regarding the island’s de facto status as an outpost of American imperialism. The material screened will include interviews with Ruben Berrios, leader of the Independence party, Rafael Hernández Colón, governor candidate for the Popular Democratic Party, and Carlos Romero Barceló, governor of the islands, known murderer, and darling of the Pro-Statehood party, the PNP. (Today, the PNP is the same political party incriminated in the recent upheavals over the #rickygate, #rickyrenuncia, #wandarenuncia, etcetera.)

Perhaps one of the most crucial voices in Paraguayan and Latin American Cinema, Paz Encina‘s films are haunting mementos of a nation’s past, often told through the perspective of voices often marginalized or oppressed. Born during the height of Alfredo Stroessner’ brutal dictatorship, the longest in Latin America, Encina combines poetic visuals with complex sounds to create documents that evoke that oppressive time. Her protagonists are often dealing with some kind of trauma, often relating to a certain moment in Paraguayan history and thus excavating the complex way in which a nation remembers. Add to that the inclusion of Guarani, an indigenous language spoken by a majority of the people in Paraguay, in her work and it adds another element in which language can evoke national ties. In recent years, Encina’s work has been informed by the Archives of Terror, which documented the activities of Stroessner’s secret police and the various other dictatorships in Latin America. All this combined calls for the need to remember, both the way in which nations form their histories, and the people who were forgotten, to ensure that the painful moments of the past are not repeated.

Programmed in collaboration with Anthony Chassi. Special thanks to Lita Stantic, MPM Premium and Filmes do Tejo/Maria & Mayer.

HAMACA PARAGUAYA
(PARAGUAYAN HAMMOCK)
2006. 78 mins. Paraguay.
In Guarani with English subtitles.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 6 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, AUGUST 11 – 5 PM
THURSDAY, AUGUST 22 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, AUGUST 30 – 7:30 PM

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Paz Encina’s debut feature focuses on elderly couple Ramón (Ramon Del Rio) and Cándida (Georgina Genes) as they spend their days on an isolated hammock in the woods, awaiting on news from their son who’s off at war. Set during the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay, the film shows the two conversing about anything but the actual details of the war, of which they know little about. Instead, conversations about whether it’s going to rain and how to shut their son’s dog up take up their time. Between these conversations we hear flashbacks of the conversations that led up to their son leaving, juxtaposed with moments of labor and inaction. With its static long takes and atmospheric setting, HAMACA PARAGUAYA invites viewers into a space where our understanding of the temporal and spatial are vague, and campesino life become as abstract as any work can dare to be.

EJERCICIOS DE MEMORIA
(MEMORY EXERCISES)
2016. 70 mins. Paraguay.
In Spanish and Guarani with English subtitles.

MONDAY, AUGUST 19 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, AUGUST 29 – 7:30 PM

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Part documentary, part testimonial, and part fiction, Paz Encina’s second feature EJERCICIOS DE MEMORIA focuses on one of former Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner’s most prominent opponents, through the memories of his children. Agustín Goiburú, a politician and doctor, planned a failed assassination attempt on Stroessner and later disappeared while in exile in Argentina in 1976. 35 years after his disappearance, his children are asked to return to a specific moment in their childhood but also a brutal period for the country and the majority of Latin America. Encina’s recent work is informed by the Archives of Terror, which collected documents chronicling the human rights violations by the Stroessner dictatorship’s secret police force and was used to prove the existence of Operation Condor. EJERJICOS DE MEMORIA recontextualizes the history of the nation by excavating the memory of those affected by it during its most oppressive time, forming a haunting poem that demands reflection.

THE SHORT FILMS OF PAZ ENCINA
2000-2014. Paraguay/Argentina.
Total runtime: 60 mins.

MONDAY, AUGUST 5 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, AUGUST 11 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, AUGUST 18 – 5 PM
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28 – 7:30 PM

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SUPE QUE ESTABAS TRISTE
(I KNEW YOU WERE SAD)
dir. Paz Encina, 2000
5 mins. Argentina.

A family photo, the sound of the oncoming storm, the cat wandering the kitchen, a man alone in this space. Paz Encina’s early melancholic short is a conversation not shown on screen. Has it already occured or does it take place after this brief moment in time? Using only subtitles and visual language, SUPE QUE ESTABAS TRISTE creates an array if emotions without ever having to “show” anything.

HAMACA PARAGUAYO
(PARAGUAYAN HAMMOCK)
2000. 8 mins. Paraguay/Argentina.
In Guarani with English subtitles.

Made while she was attending the Universidad del Cine in Buenos Aires, Encina’s early short, which was expanded into a feature length film years later, contains the same components and mood as the feature. HAMACA PARAGUAYA establishes the traits Encina would be known for later in her career. A couple awaits on any news regarding their son, who is off at war, they spend their time conversing about the rain or how the dog won’t shut up. Shot on video, the film moves in waves, similar to a dream or a faded memory, Becoming a sensory experience.

FAMILIAR
(FAMILY)
2014. 9 mins. Paraguay.
In Guarani and Spanish with English subtitles.

ARRIBO
(ARRIVAL)
2014. 10 mins. Paraguay.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

Constructed by documents, audio, and images uncovered in the Archives of Terror, ARRIBO and FAMILIAR were originally intended to be shown in a gallery space. These two shorts remind us of the need to recognize the actions of the Stroessner dictatorship as human rights violations, while also asking the viewer to remember those interrogated, beyond that context. ARRIBO is a collection of surveillance images accompanied by an interrogation in Guarani while FAMILIAR combines these same components with unrelated home movies. Both films transport us to a troubled time in Paraguayan history, excavating the past in hopes that those affected throughout the dictatorship aren’t forgotten.

TRISTEZAS DE LA LUCHA
(SORROWS OF THE STRUGGLE)
2016. 7 mins. Paraguay.
In Spanish and Guarani with English subtitles.

Continuing her research on the Archives of Terror to create moving pieces, TRISTEZAS DE LA LUCHA once again serves as a time capsule to a particular moment in the nation’s history, where one political party was dominant and those opposed to it feared for their lives. Combining the audio of a rally from the right-wing Colorado party, the only legal political party during the Stroessner dictatorship, and a short story by the anarchist Rafael Barrett, the film reminds us of the struggles both sides face when they’ve been robbed of their autonomy. As a lone figure walks along the rural Paraguayan woods, a political prisoner under house arrest has a phone call detailing the soldier that has been tasked with guarding him. Though this soldier could be seen as his oppressor, the prisoner instead feels compassion for him, wondering if he’s too cold and if he’s lonely outside. TRISTEZAS DE LA LUCHA reminds us of the humanity in the face of terror, which can sometimes come from unlikely sources.

VIENTO SUR
(A WIND FROM THE SOUTH)
2012. 23 mins. Paraguay.
In Spanish and Guarani with English subtitles.

Two brothers, both fisherman, are the subjects of this atmospheric short. Their lives are defined by the Paraguay River, and when their lives depend on crossing the river to escape harm from Stroessner’s troops, they begin to question whether to run or stay. One of the brothers is determined to cross as soon as possible to avoid being caught in the crossfire, while the other is still weary of migrating, fearing that they’ll get caught in the August rainfall during their travel. With seemingly unrelated images and the attention to sound that Encina is known for, VIENTO SUR reflects on forced migration and how survival to some can form through various different solutions.

After a July of East German Sci-Fi, we offer two cool-down spy flicks from the DEFA Library. Don’t expect much blood and sex – these stories are based on real events, especially the hyper-real.

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FOR EYES ONLY
(STRENG GEHEIM)
dir. János Veiczi, 1963
GDR. 98 mins.
In German with English subtitles.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 1 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, AUGUST 10 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, AUGUST 15 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, AUGUST 25 – 5 PM

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This spy story centers on Hansen/Lorenz, a suave and slippery SS operative in the employ of Major Collins, one of many Americans in West Germany working in the business sector while reporting to the U.S. Military. Hansen is tasked with stealing a stash of paperwork that details a plan to invade the East. Horst Hesse, the model for Hansen’s character, was in fact a Stasi agent who infiltrated the U.S. Military Intelligence Division and uncovered the identities of over 500 Western spies in East Germany. The U.S. plan to invade, however, was never true – communist leaders oversold Hesse’s story in order to justify building the wall.

FOR EYES ONLY is a dense artifact that is at times hard to follow, mostly due to the lack of gun violence and explosions. There is some relief in nightclubs where spies talk to spies, spies are spied upon, and all kinds of miniature gadgetry is used. Though militarily powerful, Americans are either showboating failures or culturally ignorant in this film, most notably two lackey agents who put out a hit to a jazzy version of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”.

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CODED MESSAGE FOR THE BOSS
(CHIFFRIERT AN CHEF – AUSFALL NR. 5)
dir. Helmut Dziuba, 1979
GDR. 94 mins.
In German with English subtitles.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 8 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, AUGUST 16 – 10 PM
MONDAY, AUGUST 26 – 7:30 PM

ONLINE TICKETS      FACEBOOK EVENT 

Everybody wants a piece of Wolf Brandin, a talented electrical engineering PhD candidate and model East German citizen. The CIA are gathering intelligence on “Number 5”, who has a promising thesis on radio communications and takes frequent trips to the West side of Berlin. When he’s offered lucrative work for the CIA, he runs back to East Germany and informs the secret police. Rather than ridding himself of the problem, he is now a tool of both the Stasi and the CIA, forced to live a double life that takes a toll on his marriage and good nature. Despite these challenges, Brandin does not lose track of his allegiance to East Germany and is able to feed the CIA misinformation that enables the Berlin Wall to be built.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 17th – 7:30 PM
ONE NIGHT ONLY!

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KORN: R-U READY (UNAUTHORIZED)
dir. Creative Media Productions, 2000.
48 min. United States.
In English.

“From the suburban bleakness of Bakersfield, South California, KoRn have emerged as kings of Nu-metal. The opposition has been blown away with anger and angst-ridden blasts of down turned hip-core. KoRn are the voice of America’s angry young. The American dream has come of age, but it’s turned belly up and now lies bloated on a stagnant pool of lost ideals in this grisly nightmare. KoRn have given the finger to those who said rock and roll was dead. R U Ready?

Powered by the seven stringed sound monsters Munky and Head, and backed by skin pounder David Silvera’s hip hop ravaged beats, KoRn are driven to the rock’s very edge. The percussion power of Fieldy’s bass and Jonathan Davis’ twisted lyrics probe life’s scar tissue and put a finger in the wound.

This uncensored, unauthorized program is a slammin’ six pak of a biography which tells the KoRn story like it is. They have many imitators, but still they are Kings!” – description from back of VHS

“Korn: R-U Ready contains exclusive footage as well as original music by Jshaw and Scat.” – Rxtten Txmatxes

Various reviews from Amazxn.cxm –

“I am a HUGE KoRn fan, so you can only imagine how POed I was when I saw this. The video doesn’t even have the band, except for one part, which is 1/2 a mile away from the band. Plus, the host tries to be tough and cool by cursing, but he ends looking like a total jack-ass. I would only recommend this to the most die-hard KoRn fan who wants everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, anyone else should just leave this DVD on the shelves and boycott it.” – Pete

“This unauthorized dvd has NO band footage, NO interviews with the band and NOT ONE video. It was all interviews with fans and clips of people outside shows. I found it to be choppy, repititive and pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle. It is as if someone had clips of korn and put it together themselves.” – Daniel J. Hagerman

“Honestly guys, all this DVD is, is some punk trying to swear as much as he can cuz he’s trying to be cool, as soon as the DVD starts the guy is standing there screaming ‘ARE YOU READY? I SAID ARE YOU READY?’” – Matt

“I tell you, this video is a disgrace to the koRn name.” – wc

MATCH CUTS is a weekly podcast centered on video, film and the moving image. Match Cuts Presents is dedicated to presenting de-colonialized cinema, LGBTQI films, Marxist diatribes, video art, dance films, sex films, and activist documentaries with a rotating cast of presenters from all spectrums of the performing and plastic arts and surrounding humanities. Match Cuts is hosted by Nick Faust and Kachine Moore.

CHICAGOLAND SHORTS VOL. 5
dir. Various. 78 minutes.

TUESDAY, JULY 2 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 10 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, JULY 21 – 5 PM
TUESDAY, JULY 30 – 7:30 PM w/Chicagoland programmer Raul Benitez in person for Q&A!
(This event is $10.)

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Established in 2015, Chicagoland Shorts is Full Spectrum Features’ annual touring short film collection that highlights the incredible diversity of The Windy City and its surrounding communities. Featuring the best of women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ filmmakers, this traveling anthology has screened across Cook County and nationally from Seattle to New York. The artists in our collections are diverse, prolific, genre-bending, and quintessentially Chicago.

The fifth volume of Full Spectrum Features’ Chicagoland Shorts anthology offers a look into different worlds, with films spanning genres of narrative, experimental, and docu-fantasy, the collection will take you from an 8-year-old’s nightmares to the last remaining freed slave settlement. Artists in our collection include a Sundance Documentary Fellow, a Fulbright-García Robles Foundation Award recipient, and a Cannes award-winning director.

I MISS JAMIE WHEN SHE’S GONE
dir. Ashley Thompson
16 mins.

Two estranged sisters return to the suburbs of Chicago ten months after their father’s sudden death to clean out their childhood home.

SMART NIGHTMARES
dir. Marisa Tolomeo. 5 mins.

Hannah narrates her nightmares, while her family argues on who’s to blame for her creepy internet searches.

HALL OF FISHES
dir. Jennifer Boles. 9 mins.

An immersive archival film about the limits of visual knowledge and the webs of power and violence behind our desires to see, contain, and consume the ocean.

SHEEBOP! SHEEBOP! SHEEBOP!
dir. Jiayi Chen & Cameron Worden. 3 mins.

A trip to Florida spurs taxonomical speculation.

SCALING QUELCCAYA
dir. Meredeith Leich. 7 mins.

A surreal exploration of a melting glacier in Peru and an altered future in Chicago, weaving together 3D animation, satellite imagery, archival NASA footage, and speculative math about climate and snow.

EXODUS: SOUNDS OF THE GREAT MIGRATION
dir. Lonnie Edwards. 12 mins.

Told through live performance, dance and spoken word, Exodus looks into how the Great Migration gave birth to many artists that influenced and empowered black culture.

PALENQUE
dir. Sebastián Pinzón Silva. 25 mins.

Guided by motifs of life and death, PALENQUE is an ode to a small town that has greatly contributed to the collective memory of Colombia: San Basilio de Palenque, the first town in the Americas to have broken free from European domination.

Chicagoland Shorts Vol. 5 was curated by Raul Benitez (Comfort Station), Emily Eddy (Onion City) and Melika Bass (Creature Companion) and includes the latest films by acclaimed local filmmakers as well as debut works by emerging voices.

Full Spectrum Features is a Chicago-based 501(c)(3) nonprofitorganization committed to increasing diversity in themedia arts by producing, exhibiting, and supporting the work of women, LGBTQ, and minority filmmakers.