UMBRAL 0 x SÍNTESIS
Thursday, April 20, 2023
5:00-8:00pm
Art on Screen 23 is inspired by Jorge Pardo’s Folly on view in Wilhelmina’s Grove at the University of Houston. Pardo’s groundbreaking art blurs artistic lines while engaging avant-garde experimentation. In this spirit of boundless artistic creativity Public Art UHS is proud to present UMBRAL x SÍNTESIS a collection of experimental films presented by FICUNAM, the International Film Festival of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM).
In the first installment of UMBRAL 0 within the 12th edition of FICUNAM, four films were commissioned from Mexican and Latin American filmmakers with international recognition in the field of avant-garde cinema. These commissions had their world premiere at the 12th edition of FICUNAM (March 10-20, 2022). The four films included are as follows: Puerta a Puerta (Dir. Jessica Sarah Rinland and Luis Arnías/ 2022/ México-United States-Venezuela/ 10 min.), Atados los Años Engullen la Tierra (Dir. Clemente Castor/ 2022/ México, 2022/ 40 min.), Lungta (Dir. Alexandra Cuesta/ 2022/ México-Ecuador/ 10 min.), and Teponaztli (Dir. Colectivo Los Ingrávidos/ 2022/ México/ 38 min.)
This year’s program is co-presented with FICUNAM and features a Live Talk and Q+A with FICUNAM Artistic Director, Maximiliano Cruz.
Free refreshments and concessions will be provided. Admission to all Art on Screen 23 activities is free and open to the public.
Advance registration is required.
PROGRAM
5:00pm | Doors
5:30pm | Session I Films
- Puerta a puerta (10 min)
- Atados los años engullen la tierra (40 min)
6:30pm | Intermission / Live talk with Maximiliano Cruz + Q+A
7:00pm | Session II Films
- Lungta (10min)
- Teponaztli (38 min)
Event Location
Puerta a Puerta (2022) by Dir. Jessica Sarah Rinland and Luis Arnías | México-United States-Venezuela | 10 min
A box is filled with aspirins, canned peaches, cereal, beans and clothes. Mr. Mario from Venus Service Express picks it up from a door in Boston, USA. The box is then placed with others as if it were a postal Tetris – after a long way it shall arrive to Falcón, Venezuela, to the doorstep of Aunt Maya.
Atados los Años Engullen la Tierra (2022) by Dir. Clemente Castor | México | 40 min
In the Sierra of Santa Catarina, east of the Valley of Mexico, a volcano erupts. The crack of the earth is heard in the middle of the night. All things reverberate and the sky becomes red. Two teenagers emerge from within the volcano. Centuries later they wake up. It is the last day of time, when all the fire dies, the day of the offering when it all begins as a spiral for yet another century. Irene tries to go back to the place where she comes from, wandering the city and the volcanos. She crosses the Xaltepec volcano until she arrives at La Caldera. Gamma wanders the jungle, exploring the landscape until he is lost. Memories of the volcano’s explosion cross his mind.
Lungta (2022) by Dir. Alexandra Cuesta | México-Ecuador | 10 min
: Analogue composition of image and sound.
:: Illusion of movement. Apparition. Vanishing.
::: Lungta (wind horse, internal air).
Teponaztli (2022) by Dir. Colectivo Los Ingrávidos | México | 38 min
Shot with 16mm Bolex cameras, our Teponaztli implies a moving anarchy, crowned anarchy of color, light, forms, rhythms, cadences, chains, superimpositions: silhouettes, contours, textures, intermittences, flashes, sparkles, opacities, darkness, dances, volumes, entrails, pulps, fluids, surfaces, faces and syncope, all of it to dizzying velocities. Here multiple entities, objects, pulses, forms, colors and figures all co-habit and co-exist according to an altered rhythm and order, the percussive rhythm of an audiovisual and cinetic teponaztli. Our Teponaztli implies a singular perceptive transformation. Dancing bodies in an agitated bodily drift: metastasis and prelude to the trance, consecration of intermittences. Here our point of view explodes under the spell and the trance of collected things, falls, Mesoamerican rain, wet wood, luminous rain, rain of sticks. Percussive woods. Here the audiovisual diagram that guides us, the cinetic wind that inspires us, the serpenting spear that overtakes us, the agitated dog that howls at us is the very Teponaztli, Mesoamerican drum: sticks, trunks, branches and wood serpenting, dancing, bouncing. Cinematic and audiovisual serialism from the scorches of the Earth.
Parking and Transportation
Parking: The Welcome Center Garage at 4400 University Drive, Houston, TX 77204 is the closest visitor parking to Student Center South. All visitor parking options on campus and hourly rates can be viewed here.
Public Transit: The Calhoun Road @ UH University Drive bus stop is one block from Student Center South. The UH South/University Oaks METRO stop is a 5-minute walk via Cougar Village Drive.
Cycling: Bicycle racks and a BCycle station are located on the west side of Student Center South.
Art on Screen 23 is co-presented with the Festival Internacional de la Cine de la Universidad Autonoma de Mexico (FICUNAM), and is sponsored by the University of Houston Student Center South Theater Film Series Program.
