15h30

(Feature Film Competition)
Rabioso Sol, Rabioso Cielo | Raging Sun, Raging Sky, by Julián Hernández (Mexico, 2009, 191’)

Raging Sun, Raging Sky is the story of two men that love each other without being attached to any spatial or temporal circumstance. They love each other trapped in an eternity dictated by the essence of their reason of being, which will take them on a journey that goes from the real world and into inevitable transcendence, meeting with other forces that will modify and enforce this vital act. The film confronts us with love as an epic ordeal in a continuous present, travelling from daily life and into a mythical fight in which loss and death are only stages of the sweet pain that helps to reach absolute happiness.

19h30

(Feature Film Competition)
A Festa da Menina Morta | The Dead Girl’s Feast, by Matheus Nachtergaele (Brazil, 2008, 108’)

Every year, for 20 years, a small riverside community in the upper part of the Negro River celebrates The Dead Girl’s Feast. The occasion is meant to honour the ingenuous miracle that was performed by Santinho a long time ago, after the dim episode of his mother’s suicide who received the blue rags of a missing girl’s dress in his little hands, from the fangs of a mongrel. The little girl was never found, but her remains, symbolized in the bloodstained dress rags, became sacred and were worshiped. The party evolved, indifferent to the pain and rebelliousness of the dead girl’s brother, Tadeu. Now, the inhabitants of nearby Amazon villages visit the small town on the holy day to worship the dead girl, pray and beg. They anxiously wait for the girl’s “revelations”,
spoken by the voice of Santinho. These are the acme of the ceremony. Matheus Nachtergaele’s debut feature is a tragically beautiful tale of the captivating and captive-making nature of religious idolatry. Told in a lyrical visual style, centred around an Amazon settlement, this distinctly original film heralds the rise of a new voice in Brazilian Cinema.

22h00

(Feature Film Competition)
Pedro, de Nick Oceano (EUA, 2008, 93’)

From the same screenwriter of the recent film Milk, by Gus Van Sant, Pedro is the biographical film adaptation of the life of Pedro Zamora, who became famous by participating in the MTV reality show The Real World. Born in Cuba, he emigrated to the U.S.A. in 1980. The youngest child in a close family, Zamora’s life changed at the age of 13 when his mother died. Already a top student, he immersed himself in his studies. When he was 17, and after engaging in unprotected sex, he discovered that he was HIV-positive. Once he absorbed the initial shock, Zamora made the lifealtering decision to become an activist and educator. He decided to audition for the San Francisco season of MTV’s The Real World, which seemed like the perfect opportunity to spread awareness about HIV/AIDS. The exposure brought Pedro worldwide recognition. For millions of people, he was the only person they knew living with HIV.