Event

In line with Penn’s Covid19 response guidelines, the Cinema & Media Studies Program canceled the event below. We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause and send our best wishes to all.

Unfinished Business: Unseen Films, Unheard Stories
A Film Series curated by Robert Cargni, Film Programmer, for Penn Cinema & Media Studies.

"Distribution circuits and exhibition venues and platforms substantially limit our access to the films we can watch. As a film programmer, my aspiration has always been that of recuperating part of the heterogeneous richness of world cinemas and local film cultures and to make it available to audiences interested in expanding the breadth and diversity of their film experience. As part of this always unfinished business of cultural recovery, I like to present to you a group of virtually unseen films that tackle some of the most pressing questions of our times: migration, social marginalization, gender inequality, racial discrimination, and the systematic impoverishment of the Global South. This film series offers you the opportunity to expand your familiarity with diasporic filmmaking, women’s cinema, contemporary film cultures in Latin American and the Caribbean, as well as with filmmakers operating at the peripheries of the American and European film industries." (Robert Cargni)
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Jean Gentil
Israel Cárdenas and Laura Amelia Guzmán, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Germany, 2010, 84 mins, in Spanish, Haitian, w/ English subt., and English

Based on the life of a real person named Jean Remy Gentil, a Haitian immigrant living in Santo Domingo who got to know Guzman when she took Haitian Creole lessons with him, the film is the result of the director’s desire to explore the experiences of Haitian immigrants in the Dominican Republic. Jean is an educated and devout person, forced like many others to leave Haiti to look for work in the Dominican Republic. Having failed to find work in Santo Domingo, he sets out into the incredibly lush countryside only to find himself pushed further into loneliness. Directors Laura Amelia Guzmán (Cochochi) and Israel Cárdenas create an intimate portrait of a searching for a livable life. With stunning landscape photography and naturalistic performances, this gentle film makes a lasting impression.

The film will be introduced by Julio Sebastián Figueroa, Ph.D. Candidate in Hispanic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania
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Robert E. Cargni is formerly the film programmer and gallerist for Film @ International House Philadelphia. Robert has also curated film programming for the University of Pennsylvania Museum, as well as numerous international film festivals across the United States and Canada.