DOC NYC, the largest documentary festival in the United States, brings several Latino and Latin American films to this year's edition.
COMING HOME, Dir. Viko Nikci
INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE - At the age of 25, Angel Cordero, an innocent man, was arrested and convicted of attempted murder following a stabbing in the Bronx. Viko Nikci follows him as he is released from prison after thirteen years into a new world of smartphones and social media. Readjusting to life on the outside, Angel has two goals: confronting the man who actually committed the crime for which he was punished, and repairing his relationship with the daughter he was forced to leave behind.
7:00 PM, Sat. Nov. 15, 2014 - IFC Center
12:30 PM, Thu. Nov. 20, 2014 - IFC Center
Expected to attend: Viko Nikci, film subject Angel Cordero
DISRUPTION, Dir. Pamela Yates
NYC PREMIERE - Recognizing the persistence of income inequality in South America, a group of activist economists join together to offer an alternative path to eliminating poverty: encouraging the poor to open savings accounts and thereby become active agents within the existing economic system. Fundación Capital partners with impoverished women to put their plan for financial inclusion into action, beginning pilot programs in Colombia, Peru and Brazil, and demonstrating the power of women to lead potentially continent-wide social change.
2:30 PM, Sat. Nov. 15, 2014 - IFC Center
5:00 PM, Tue. Nov. 18, 2014 - IFC Center
Expected to attend: Pamela Yates, producer Paco de Onis
THE HAND THAT FEEDS, Dir. Rachel Lears & Robin Blotnick
NYC PREMIERE - An Upper East Side Hot & Crusty bakery serves as the unlikely setting for an old-fashioned David vs. Goliath story in Rachel Lears and Robin Blotnick's rousing film. After years of exploitation, Mahoma López, an unassuming sandwich maker, leads his fellow service workers as they demand better working conditions and wages. Risking their livelihood—and, for some, deportation—they take to the streets to plead their case to their regular customers, partnering with impassioned young Occupy activists in a hard-fought battle to prove the power of labor organizing.
2:30 PM, Sun. Nov. 16, 2014 - IFC Center
Expected to attend: Robin Blotnick, Rachel Lears, film subjects Mahoma Lopez and family
MARMATO, Dir. Mark Grieco
NYC PREMIERE - Exploring the intersection of economic development, environmental impact and globalization, Mark Grieco's film is an intimate and richly observed portrait of Marmato, a rural mining town threatened with destruction. At the center of a new global gold rush, the Colombian government has imperiled Marmato by selling its mines to a Canadian company. With plans in place to displace 8,000 inhabitants, level their mountain home and transform it into an open pit to extract the estimated $20 billion in gold buried within, can the community survive?
2:45 PM, Tue. Nov. 18, 2014 - IFC Center
5:15 PM, Wed. Nov. 19, 2014 - IFC Center
Expected to attend: Mark Grieco
RUBBLE KINGS, Dir. Shan Nicholson
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE - Confronting a bankrupt, decaying city and the dashed hopes of the civil rights generation, African-American and Latino teenagers violently took over the streets of 1970s New York. The South Bronx became a war zone ruled by gangs like the Savage Skulls and the Ghetto Brothers. Hypnotic archival footage and present-day interviews with former gang members reveal how peace was brokered at the peak of the bloodshed in a most unlikely manner, laying the foundation for what ultimately became hip-hop culture.
9:15 PM, Sun. Nov. 16, 2014 - SVA Theatre
Expected to attend: Shan Nicholson, film subjects Benji Melendez, Lloyd Murphy, Jee Sanchez, Rolly Rodriguez and D.S.R.
THE SALT OF THE EARTH, Dir. Wim Wenders & Juliano Ribeiro Salgado
Brazilian Sebastião Salgado has created some of the most indelible photographs of our time. His black- and-white images bring an artful composition to chronicling humanity's "salt of the earth" in multiyear projects such as "Workers," "Migrations" and "Genesis." This film, directed by his son Juliano Ribeiro Salgado and Wim Wenders, brings an insider's and outsider's perspective on the family, illuminating the key role played by Salgado's wife Lélia Deluiz Wanick and their work on the nature preserve Instituto Terra. Sony Pictures Classics, opens Apr. 3.
7:00 PM, Wed. Nov. 19, 2014 - Bow Tie Chelsea Cinemas
A SMALL SECTION OF THE WORLD, Dir. Lesley Chilcott
NYC PREMIERE - In equal measures inspiring and endearing, Leslie Chilcott's film spotlights a group of Costa Rican village women who, seeking a way to offset the economically motivated flight of their husbands and sons from the community, form ASOMOBI, a coffee-growing collective—despite not knowing the first thing about growing coffee. Persevering through a steep learning curve and numerous setbacks, ASOMOBI captures the attention and support of a local exporter, and through her, the international coffee industry.
Screening with Luke Lorentzen's SANTA CRUZ DEL ISLOTE. Inhabitants of a remote Colombian island paradise face an uncertain future in changing times.
5:00 PM, Fri. Nov. 14, 2014 - IFC Center
Expected to attend: Lesley Chilcott
New York: Nov. 13 - 20. Full details on the DOC NYC website.