Ism, Ism, Ism: Experimental Cinema in Latin America Kicks Off at REDCAT

The film series ‘Ism, Ism, Ism: Experimental Cinema in Latin America,’ launches at REDCAT this weekend. | Claudio Caldini, Un enano en el Jardín , 1981. Super-8. © Claudio Caldini 1981. | Photo taken from PST site.

Ism, Ism, Ism: Experimental Cinema in Latin America (Ismo, Ismo, Ismo: Cine Experimental en América Latina), the first major U.S. exhibition of rare and experimental Latin American cinema, will kick off at the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT) Friday (Sept. 22) through Sunday, Sept. 24.

Presented by Los Angeles Filmforum as part of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, the unprecedented, five-month film series will take place at 16 different venues across Southern California from Sept. 17 through Jan. 18. The film exhibition was co-curated by CalArts visiting faculty members Luciano Piazza and Jesse Lerner, who served as project director and artistic director, respectively.

Featuring both new and classic works from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, Puerto Rico and the United States, Ism, Ism, Ism seeks to introduce U.S. audiences to forgotten and largely unknown masterworks of Latin American film. Most screenings will include national and area premieres.

Curated by CalArts faculty members Steve Anker and Bérénice Reynaud, along with Piazza and Lerner, the marathon opening weekend will feature discussions with participating festival curators and scholars as well as six film programs.

Festivities launch Friday with three surrealist short films–Álvaro Cepeda Zamudio’s and Gabriel García Márquez’s renowned La langosta azul (The Blue Lobster, 1954), Raul Ruiz’s previously lost La Maleta (The Suitcase, 1963), and Argentinian photographer Horacio Coppola’s landmark Traum (Sueño, 1933) – before “Crossing Paths: Latina and Latin American Women Filmmakers in Los Angeles,” a collective screening of a dozen films and videos by local Chicana and Latin American women filmmakers.

On Saturday afternoon, a panel of scholars and curators will convene to discuss the research that led to the festival’s accompanying bilingual publication, Ism, Ism, Ism/Ismo, Ismo, Ismo: Experimental Cinema in Latin America (University of California Press). Edited by Lerner and Piazza, the new volume features 18 essays and articles from key scholars and artists about the history of Latin American experimental film, the first comprehensive U.S. catalogue to treat the full breadth of Latin America’s vibrant experimental film production.

Saturday night events will include screenings of 22 South American “Camera-Less” short films and a special tribute to the work of El Paso, Texas-based, Chicano media artist Willie Varela hosted by the filmmaker himself.

Closing out the weekend, Sunday night’s programs will showcase short films documenting a variety of Latin American countercultural movements and explore filmic appropriations of revolutionary icon Che Guevara.

Ism, Ism, Ism programs will continue through Jan. 31, 2018, at REDCAT, the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles State Historic Park and MOCA. For more information, visit ismismism.org.

—Katie Dunham