Event

Jean Gentil

APRIL 27 - MAY 3, FRIDAY - THURSDAY AT 7, 9PM (NO 7 PM TUESDAY MAY 1)

Jean Gentil

(Laura Amelia Guzmán and Israel Cárdenas, Mexico/Dominican Republic, 2010, 35mm, 84 min)

Right before Haiti's 2010 earthquake, husband and wife Israel Cárdenas and Laura Amelia Guzmán traveled to the island to shoot Jean Gentil, whose gentleman hero, Jean Remy, loses his job teaching French and must scramble for work in Santo Domingo. Jean is a character of stoic faith, shaped by the precise attention of Guzmán, who is Dominican; but even he must flee Santo Domingo to tend to his spirit in the lonely countryside. The wonder of Jean Gentil is its ability to follow Jean's every hardship, as well as to stand in the shadow of the earthquake that would strike during production, and yet, in focusing so closely on one man's actions and reactions, to rise above the grimness of its setting and circumstance.