For fans of 21st century Mexican cinema, Lázaro Gabino Rodríguez (or Gabino, as he was colloquially known throughout most of his career) holds a special and unique place. His credits as a leading man may make for a short list heavy on Nicolás Pereda films, but he has also been there at the margins of the frame in some of this century’s most important Mexican films, stealing scenes as a supporting player with his distinct physical presence. In his work with Pereda he is something else, a brusque and enigmatic face grounding Pereda’s bewildering structural experiments with a quiver of the lip or tilt of the head that lends an ordinary immediacy to what is otherwise a typical atmosphere of ambiguity. In addition to those films, this retrospective also encompasses work Lázaro Gabino Rodríguez did with international filmmakers working in Mexico. Showcasing different sides of his screen persona – LA ULTIMA PELICULA demonstrates a distinct, improv-heavy casualness, while LUCIFER takes the gestural elements of his art to the extreme, bringing him closer to the subject of a Flemish painting – these two films capture something of his range and ability.
Beyond his acting work Lázaro is also a writer and director in his own right. Besides co-directing the film MY SKIN, LUMINOUS, which plays in this series alongside FAUNA, his theater company Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol has presented work all over the world and his book on acting has been translated into four languages so far. We are proud to present a new translation of this book into English as part of this retrospective. It will be on sale in the box office for $2.00 and given for free to anyone who attends the post-screening Q&A following FAUNA and MY SKIN, LUMINOUS on July 23rd.
There will be a special zine by Lázaro Gabino Rodríguez on sale during the series featuring his aphoristic writing on acting. It will be available in the booth for $2.00 and distributed for free during the Q&A on July 23rd.
Co-presented with Cinema Tropical. Special thanks to Lucrecia Arcos.
LA ULTIMA PELICULA
dirs. Mark Peranson, Raya Martin, 2013
88 mins. Canada/Mexico.
In English and Spanish with English subtitles.
FRIDAY, JULY 1 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, JULY 3 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, JULY 7 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 13 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, JULY 23 – 10 PM
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In this documentary within a narrative (and vice versa), grandiose filmmaker (Alex Ross Perry) arrives in the Yucatán to scout locations for his new movie, a production that will involve exposing the last extant celluloid film stock on the eve of the Mayan Apocalypse. Riffing off of Dennis Hopper’s THE LAST MOVIE, which was originally set to take place in Mexico, Mark Peranson and Raya Martin create a hypnotic meditation on the many predicted deaths of cinema which have never come to pass. As Perry wanders around tourist sights, snarkily bemoaning the superficiality of the gringos, he’s led by his friend and assistant, Lázaro Rodriguez, who seems as equally confused by this whole endeavor as he is. Using a veritable cyclone of film and video formats, genres, modes, and methods, Martin and Peranson create an unclassifiable work in LA PELICULA ULTIMA that mirrors the contortions and leaps of the medium’s history and present.
LUCIFER
dir. Gust Van Den Berghe, 2014
108 mins. Mexico/Belgium.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
SUNDAY, JULY 3 – 5 PM
SATURDAY, JULY 9 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 15 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 22 – 10 PM
THURSDAY, JULY 28 – 10 PM
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Filmed in Tondoscope, a format specifically created for this film which uses a high-sensitivity circular lens that creates a circular image with an eerily luminous quality, and often using mirrors to craft 360 degree images, LUCIFER is a film of well-crafted beauty that owes a lot to renaissance painting and literature. Lucifer, Lázaro Rodriguez, passes through the earthly paradise of a village in Mexico on his downfall from Heaven to Hell. There he meets elderly Lupita and her granddaughter Maria. Lupita’s brother Emanuel pretends he’s paralyzed so he can drink and gamble while the two women tend to the sheep. Lucifer senses an opportunity and plays the miraculous healer, forcing Emanuel to walk again so as to seduce Maria and makes Lupita doubt her faith.
PERPETUUM MOBILE
dir. Nicolás Pereda, 2009
87 mins. Mexico.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
SATURDAY, JULY 2 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 15 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 20 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 27 – 10 PM
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Gabino (Lázaro Rodriguez) is a 24-year old man who still lives with his mother and works as a moving truck driver in Mexico City. His mother, Teresa, worships Gabino’s older brother, Miguel, who never visits them. Gabino and his mother have a distant relationship that comes to a climax when they stumble upon an unexpected discovery.
SUMMER OF GOLIATH
(VERANO DE GOLIAT)
dir. Nicolás Pereda, 2010
75 mins. Mexico.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
FRIDAY, JULY 8 – 10 PM
THURSDAY, JULY 14 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, JULY 24 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, JULY 30 – 10 PM
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His real name is Oscar, but his friends call him Goliath because he is alleged to have killed his girlfriend. That is what Oscar and his little brother Nico tell an interviewer offscreen at the start of SUMMER OF GOLIATH. This fifth film by Nicolás Pereda starts as a documentary, only later to change into a feature film when we see the housewife Teresa trudge across a field with a heavy suitcase. She has just been deserted by her husband, Eduardo. With an intriguing mixture of fiction and documentary, Pereda sketches a picture of a small rural town where it seems fairly common for husbands to desert their families (often to go and work in the United States), where there is little work and where soldiers stroll around and combat boredom by intimidating people. It’s a community where the outcast Oscar and a lonely Teresa have difficulty keeping their heads above water.
“Pereda’s ambitious but willfully puzzling SUMMER OF GOLIATH (2010) tells a number of stories, none of them fully developed. Set in a rural environment, in which woods, fields, and rivers bear oppressively on the action, the film consists of stories that are juxtaposed with each other, scene by scene, in the fashion of a patchwork quilt. Once again, Teresa Sánchez and [Lázaro] Gabino Rodríguez are mother and son, their problems compounded by the husband-father’s abandonment; once again, [Lázaro] lacks a proper job, this time as he plays soldier with a pal. Pereda’s inclusion of interviews with minor characters whose situations are unconnected to the main one lends a documentary air to the entire work, blurring the line between fabrication and what seem to be actual events. The film’s title refers to a young man accused of killing his girlfriend. Though we hear no more about this after the interview that begins the film, it hangs over the movie as a specter of hopelessness and irresolution.” – Tony Pipolo, Artforum
FAUNA
dir. Nicolás Pereda, 2020
70 mins. Mexico.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
FRIDAY, JULY 1 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, JULY 10 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, JULY 14 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, JULY 23 – 7 PM with remote Q+A with Lázaro Gabino Rodriguez
(This event is $10.)
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In a run-down Mexican mining town, Luisa brings her boyfriend Paco home to meet her family including her brother (Lázaro Gabino Rodriguez) and mother (Teresa Sanchez). Luisa and Paco are both actors, and the visit grows increasingly (and hilariously) awkward as Luisa’s father becomes fascinated by Paco’s minor role in a big television show. FAUNA’s exploration of performance deepens as the film reinvents itself halfway through, recasting Lázaro Rodriguez as the protagonist of a mystery plot set in a nearby roadside motel. Scenes and characters begin to repeat and revise each other’s earlier incarnations, with each actor taking on new roles.
screening with
MY SKIN, LUMINOUS
(MI PIEL, LUMINOSA)
dirs. Lázaro Rodriguez and Nicolás Pereda, 2019
40 mins. Mexico.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
Originally commissioned by the Mexican Ministry of Education, Nicolás Pereda and Gabino Rodríguez’s hypnotically mysterious hybrid object unravels and metamorphoses within the walls of a school. This oneiric journey from light to darkness is a gorgeously abstracted tale of childhood and healing. Having lost the pigment in his skin, Matias, an infirm orphan at a Michoacán primary school, has been quarantined from his classmates. Meanwhile, the presence and words of novelist Mario Bellatin offer the prospect of healing to his ailing body.
