National Gathering of Latin Canadian Filmmakers
Panel: Fiction Film
Friday, May 12
3 PM to 3:40 PM
Maison de développement durable (Salle Clark), 50 Ste-Catherine Ouest
Facilitated by Zaira Zarza, this panel with introduce the fiction film practices of Andrea Martinez Crowther, Lina Rodriguez and Katherine Jerkovic, and will open up for wider discussion on the place of fiction film in Latin Canadian cinema and the challenges working in this form.
Animé par Zaira Zarza, ce panel présentera les travaux d’Andrea Martinez Crowther, de Lina Rodriguez et de Katherine Jerkovic sur le cinéma de fiction et ouvrira une discussion plus large sur la place du cinéma de fiction dans le cinéma latino canadien et sur les défis liés à cette forme de travail.
Winnipeg-based Chilean-Canadian filmmaker and curator Cecilia Araneda’s works have screened at venues such as Visions du Reél, Ann Arbor, Images, RIDM, Documenta Madrid, Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano, Bienal de la Imagen en Movimiento, TIFF Wavelengths, Film Anthology Archives and Maysles Documentary Center. Araneda’s debut feature film, Intersection (starring Carmen Aguirre) was released in fall 2022.
Araneda is also a nationally-recognized media art curator and is a past recipient of the national Canada Council for the Arts Joan Lowndes Prize for curation in the visual and media arts. She was a co-founder of the WNDX Festival of Moving Image and served as Executive Director of the storied Winnipeg Film Group / Winnipeg Cinematheque from 2006 to 2017, when she left the organization to pursue her independent filmmaking and curatorial practices full time.
Araneda holds a BFA (hons) from York University and an MFA from the University of British Columbia, and is additionally a three-time alumna of the Independent Imaging Retreat. | ceciliaaraneda.ca
Andrea is a Mexican-Canadian filmmaker who feels equally comfortable in the worlds of fiction and documentary; her films – deeply personal and often self-referenced – frequently explore the blurry area between the two. Her first feature, Insignificant Things, was selected in the Sundance Screenwriter’s Lab as well as the IFP Director’s lab under the mentorship of Rodrigo García (Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her) and was Executive Produced by Guillermo del Toro. The film premiered in San Sebastian and garnered the People’s Choice Award in the Festival des Cultures d’Amerique Latine de Biarritz. Her second film, the deeply personal and intimate documentary Ciclo, revisits the bicycle journey her father and uncle made from Mexico to Canada in 1956, in an exploration of memories, the cycles of life and the unavoidable passage of time. The film garnered several People’s Choice Awards including the Vancouver Latin American Film Festival. Her third film Observar las aves, is a fiction film shot as if it were a documentary about a writer with Alzheimer’s who decides to make a farewell film to life. The film premiered at the Los Cabos International Film Festival where it garnered the People’s Choice Award as well as the New Art Kingdom Award.
Andrea’s upcoming film, Tare, is a story about loss and healing based on her own experience. It stars renowned Mexican actor Tenoch Huerta (Black Panther, Wakanda Forever) and is currently in post-production. Andrea has several projects on her slate including the Canada-Mexico feature coproduction Labranza, the romantic comedy, Smitten, and the web series The Secret Life of Plants. Andrea currently teaches Directing at Humber College. She is a member of the DGC, a WIFT mentor and an alumna of WIDC.
Lina Rodriguez is a Colombian Canadian filmmaker. She has written, directed, and produced six short films (Convergences et rencontres, Pont du Carrousel, Einschnitte, Protocol, ante mis ojos, Aquí y allá) and four features (Señoritas, Mañana a esta hora, Mis dos voces and So Much Tenderness), which have been showcased in festivals and cultural venues including the Berlinale, TIFF, Locarno, NYFF, the Mar del Plata International Film Festival, the Harvard Film Archive, the ICA in London, Birkbeck Institute for the Moving Image, Film at Lincoln Center and Tabakalera Centro Internacional de Cultura Contemporánea. She has had retrospectives of her work screened at Sala Leopoldo Lugones in Buenos Aires, Cineteca Madrid and Cinemateca de Bogotá.
Zaira Zarza is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History and Film Studies at Université de Montréal. She obtained her Ph.D. in Cultural Studies at Queen’s University and holds a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Art History from the University of Havana. She was a Killam Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Alberta and a Cinema and Media Arts Sessional Assistant Professor at York University. As a programmer, she has worked at the Toronto (TIFF) and Cartagena (FICCI) international film festivals. She also directed the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Film Festival in Boston, 2019. Dr. Zarza’s current book project explores the work of Cuban filmmakers in the diaspora, which she has promoted since 2015 through the curated series Roots and Routes. Her first monograph Caminos del cine brasileño contemporáneo was published by Ediciones ICAIC in 2010. Zarza’s other research endeavours include a co-edited volume on Latinx-Canadian film, visual and media arts and a SSHRC-funded project on documentary activism in Latin America.