A Multiple Award-Winning Drama and Miami Film Festival Favorite Comes to MDC’s Tower Theater
JOSE
A film by: Li Cheng
Cast: Enrique Salanic, Manolo Herrera, Ana Cecilia Mota
Guatemala / 2019 / 85 min / Drama / Not Rated
In Spanish with English Subtitles
Winner, Queer Lion, Venice Film Festival
Special sneak preview on Thursday, February 13th followed by an audience Q&A with the film’s director Li Cheng.
Winner of multiple awards, including the Queer Lion from the 75th Annual Venice Film Festival, José is a gripping, layered and beautifully honest story about one working-class young man’s struggle to find himself. Made in the neorealist filmmaking tradition, the film is a nuanced and vivid look at being gay in Central America.
José lives with his mother in Guatemala City, where they survive on her selling sandwiches at bus stops and with him working at a local restaurant. It is a poor and sometimes dangerous country where living one’s life as an openly gay man is hard for José to imagine. His mother has never had a husband, and as her youngest and favorite child, she is determined to hold on to him. When Jose meets attractive and gentle Luis (Manolo Herrera), a migrant from the rural Caribbean coast, they pursue an unexpected relationship with more emotion than José has ever felt. He is thrust into new passion and pain, and self-reflection, that push him to rethink his life even as he is reluctant to take a leap of faith.
Produced by: George F. Roberson, Li Cheng
Screenplay: Li Cheng, George F. Roberson
Cinematography: Paolo Giron
Editing: Lenz Claure
Music: Yao Chen
“Cheng’s sophomore feature unfolds in episodic fashion, allowing the filmmaker to focus on quotidian interactions between his protagonist and those he cares about.” -Miami ArtZine / Full Review
Confident visual sense…a sensitive portrait [with a] depth of feeling.” -The Hollywood Reporter / Full Review
Venice Film Festival: Winner, Queer Lion
Miami Film Festival: Official Selection, 2019
