Film Today: Alpert Award Recipient Natalia Almada Residency at CalArts

CalArts, Bijou Theater

FILM/VIDEO:

El General, 2009

In 1910 a revolution erupted in Mexico, among its rallying cries "the right to vote." Nearly a century later "Sufragio Efectivo" is heard again as thousands take to the streets. Through the legacy that filmmaker Natalia Almada inherited as the great-granddaughter of Mexican president Plutarco Elias Calles (1924-1928), one of Mexico's most controversial revolutionary figures accused of having been a "Dictator," "Iron Man" and "Nun-Burner," yet also acclaimed for having been the "father of modern Mexico," El General is a portrait of a family and a country under the shadow of the past.

Winner: Documentary Directing Award, Sundance Film Festival

Natalia Almada is a recipient of the of the 2011 Alpert Award in Film/Video, a $75,000 prize given annually to important, risk-taking artists. In 2009 she received the Sundance Documentary Directing Award for El General, and her most recent film El Velador premiered at New Directors/New Films and the Cannes' Directors' Fortnight. Her previous credits include All Water Has a Perfect Memory, an experimental short film that received international recognition; Al Otro Lado, her award-winning debut feature documentary about immigration, drug trafficking and corrido music. Almada’s films have screened at The Sundance Film Festival, The Museum of Modern Art, The Guggenheim Museum and The Whitney Biennial and all three feature documentaries have broadcast on the award-winning series POV. Almada is a MacDowell Colony Fellow, a 2008 Guggenheim Fellow and a 2010 USA Artist Fellow. She graduated with a Masters in Fine Arts in photography from the Rhode Island School of Design and shares her time between Mexico City and Brooklyn, New York.

Visit
http://www.altamurafilms.com/
http://www.alpertawards.org/thework/index.html
for more information.

Natalia Almada will be in residence at CalArts from Monday, Jan 30-Fri, Feb 3 and is offering a workshop. Please see the School of Film/Video for more information.