As part of the
9th Annual CineSol Latino Film Festival 2002, the Texas
premiere of the award-winning Mexican film "El Sueño del Caimán" took place
at sunset on Saturday, July 13th, at the soon-to-be-restored
Capitol Theatre in
Brownsville's Historic Downtown District.
It was an incredible evening with more than 300 people attending the free
screening made possible through the partnership of
CineSol
Latino Film Festival and the Brownsville Society for the Performing Arts.
The evening began with the screening of the short piece, “Siente La Ciudad”, a visual homage to historic downtown Brownsville's buildings and people by Valley-based filmmaker, Brodie O'Brien.
You could have heard a pin drop as the audience sat enraptured by the beauty of the images and the exquisite soundtrack that accompanied them. The multi-talented Brodie, who also wrote and performed the music himself, was thanked by a Brownsville audience for capturing the magic essence of its Historic Downtown District.
Immediately
following, we showed the main feature:
"El Sueño del Caimán". As expected, the surrealistic, black and white
feature comedy was
a great hit with the audience.
We were honored with the presence of Beto Gómez, the film's Producer-Director from Guadalajara, and Jesse Rodriguez of JR Productions of Chicago, the film's distributor in the USA.
Their interest in shooting Beto's next film in the Brownsville-Matamoros area made their presence even more special and, because of this, the Brownsville screening was only the second-ever showing of "El Sueño del Caimán" in the United States!
The film debuted at the San Sebastian International Film Festival in Spain and has screened at the Mostra de Valencia, the Havana Film Festival, and the Amiens Film Festival, where lead actor Rafael Velasco received the Best Actor Award. It also won the Audience's Favorite Award at the prestigious Guadalajara Film Festival in Mexico.
Here are some excerpts from CineSol press releases:
"Screening a new, award-winning Mexican film at the Capitol Theater is really exciting and reinforces our mission of transforming our historic Capitol Theatre into a performing arts center that will serve the cultural and artistic needs of the Brownsville and bring economic development as well. BSPA is more than happy to work with our partner CineSol to bring the film industry to Brownsville, " says George Ramirez, President of BSPA.
Says Festival Director Evy Ledesma Galán, "Part of CineSol's mission since 1993 has been to bring the film industry to the Valley. We’ve have supported the efforts of independent filmmakers and have worked hard to bring them and Texas Film Commission Representatives from Austin to the CineSol Latino Film Festival each year. As a regional media arts organization with ties to national and international film/media entities, CineSol is in a great position to partner with other organizations to help foster economic development for our community via film and TV production.”
FILM SYNOPSIS
Title: El Sueño del Caimán (Caiman’s Dream)
Genre: Comedy
Critic's Rating: 3 1/2 Stars
Story Line: A thief discovers that crime runs in the family in this playfully dark comedy from Mexico. Iñaki (Daniel Guzman) is a petty thief who makes his way pulling stickups with an elderly partner in crime (Francisco Rabal). The old man dies in the midst of a robbery, which attracts more police attention than Iñaki is used to, and he flees to Mexico until things cool down.
In Guadalajara, Iñaki finds himself crossing paths with Patxi (Kandido Uranga), his father, with whom Iñaki hasn't always been on good terms. Patxi and his brother, El Caimán (Rafael Velasco), live in a rooming house run by a cheerful drag queen, Aunt Carmen (Roberto Espejo). Iñaki soon moves in as well, and begins dating Aunt Carmen's niece, Anita (Sara Ruiz), which pleases Carmen as he's certain Iñaki is going to be a doctor some day.
Patxi and El Caiman, however, have a different estimation of Iñaki's talents; Caimán knows about his nephew's criminal career, and he'd like Iñaki and Patxi to help with a bank robbery he wants to pull, in order to finance the upscale nightclub he's long dreamed of opening. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Director: Beto Gómez
Starring: Daniel Guzman, Rafael Velasco, Kandido Uranga, Miguel Natividad
Producers: Estefania Gollert, Beto Gomez, Isabel Lopez, Jose Nolla, & Arturo Pimentel
Screenplay: Beto Gómez & Siro Montalban (in Spanish w/ English Subtitles)
Photography: Hector Osuna
Editor: Lucas Nolla & Kali Caballero
Music: Ely Guerra
Film Festival Awards: San Sebastian 01, Amiens 01 (Best Actor: Velasco, Special Jury Mention), Havana 01, Guadalajara 02 (Audience Award), Lleida Latin 02, Chicago Latin 02
Running Time: 1:44 Minutes