Pablo Alvarez Mesa
2021Jelena's Song
Pablo Alvarez Mesa
In this short lyrical film, haunting childhood memories, photographs and family stories form the heart of a woman's search for transformation. A descent into the labyrinths of memory, the film documents Jelena's recollections of her childhood in both Croatia and Canada, resulting in a fragmentary reconstruction of her past. With candour and sensitivity, Jelena reclaims her own identity, disarming us with her courage and will.
Jelena's Song
Frank and the Wondercat
Pablo Alvarez Mesa, Tony Massil
Frank and the Wondercat is a creative personal documentary that follows Frank Furko, an 80-year old eccentric living in the Pittsburgh suburb of Plum, and explores the themes of memory, loss, friendship and mortality. Taking stock of his life, Frank tries to reconcile with the forty years working on the family farm with his domineering father, the end of his 20 year marriage and his role as a celebrity derived from an unusual but deeply felt friendship with Pudgie Wudgie, his twenty pound performing house-cat. Supported by Frank's twenty years of VHS video archives, mesmerizing footage that is strange, oddly beautiful, and often hilarious - this is an intimate and thoughtful portrait of an older man struggling to reconcile with his past.
Frank and the Wondercat
Bicentenario
Pablo Alvarez Mesa
Exactly 200 years after Simón Bolívar’s Colombian war of independence, a campaign that ran from late May to early August 1819, filmmaker Pablo Alvarez-Mesa follows the iconic Libertador’s route through the country. At each historic battleground, he calls on a medium to summon the general’s spirit, helping Alvarez-Mesa reveal Bolívar’s permanent and more or less visible presence in an array of social rituals and state structures. This historic legacy, after two centuries transfigured into a blend of political mysticism and unchallenged military doctrine, remains an integral part of Colombia’s collective unconscious. It keeps finding new expression in an endless cycle of violence, which this intriguing medium-length film seeks to exorcise. (Charlotte Selb)
Bicentenario
La pesca
Fernando López Escrivá, Pablo Alvarez Mesa
'La Pesca' portrays a day in the life of a family of fishermen in Colombia. With poetry and sensorial richness, the film captures the gestures of these men as they weave nets, cook, and play dominoes, all the while waiting for the fish to come so that they can recommence anew.
The Fish
Nuestro Monte Luna
Pablo Alvarez Mesa
Colombian teenagers study the traditional art of bullfighting in the sleepy town of Choachi. They live and train in an oasis of teen aged camaraderie and dreams for the future. But when bullfighting becomes banned in Bogota, the boys' sanctuary slowly becomes susceptible to society's larger struggles of class and conflict. Inspired by the watchful eye of retired bullfighter Nicolas, the bullfighting students strive to succeed first as Matadors, then as role models themselves. Interpreting bullfighting as a living metaphor for personal, social and historical struggles, the film focuses on the individual experiences of these boys and their mentor as they try to break free of the bleak future being dictated to them by Colombian society.
Our Forest Moon
Presidio Modelo
Pablo Alvarez Mesa
“In this meditative essay on the infamous Cuban prison of Panopticon design, the walls in the prison crumble revealing a past that has been covered by layers of thick yellow paint. Exquisite photography and lyric narration reveal a world where pain left unvisited turns into amnesia; history cannot absolve everything.” – BIG SKY FILM FESTIVAL
Presidio Modelo
