WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND – DOCUMENTARY SPOTLIGHT
Director: Iliana Sosa
Screenings:
Friday, March 11 at 6:00 pm CT @ Alamo Lamar B
Saturday, March 12 at 9 am CT / 10 am PT (Online Only)
Saturday, March 12 at 8:15 pm CT @ Satellite Venue: AFS Cinema
Wednesday, March 16 at 2 pm CT @ Alamo Lamar C
Synopsis: At the age of 89, Julián takes one last bus ride to El Paso, Texas, to visit his daughters and their children — a lengthy trip he has made without fail every month for decades. After returning to rural Mexico, he quietly starts building a house in the empty lot next to his home. In the absence of his physical visits, can this new house bridge the distance between his loved ones?
Director Iliana Sosa films her grandfather’s work, gently sifting through Julián’s previously unspoken memories brought up by the construction project and revealing both the daily pragmatism and poetry of his life. WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND unfolds as a love letter to her grandfather, as well as an intimate exploration of her own relationship with him and his homeland.
YOUR FRIEND, MEMPHIS – DOCUMENTARY SPOTLIGHT
Director: David Zucker
Screenings: Friday, March 11 at 7:15 pm CT @ Alamo Lamar E
Saturday, March 12 at 7:15 pm CT (Online Only)
Sunday, March 13 at 11:30 am CT @ Satellite Venue: AFS Cinema
Wednesday, March 16 at 1:00 pm CT @ Rollins Theatre at The Long Center
Synopsis: Memphis is exuberant, headstrong, and wild at heart. As a young man living with cerebral palsy, he is used to being looked at with skepticism when it comes to achieving his dreams, but he refuses to back down. He lives on the edge, pursuing them with grit and passion.
Although Memphis believes to his core that he’s meant for greatness, he finds himself stuck in Austin with dead-end jobs, a claustrophobic apartment, and no government assistance. His parents struggle to be there for him: they have baggage of their own. They waver between supporting Memphis’ desire for independence and pushing him towards a more pragmatic reality. His best friend Seneca, an aspiring performer, struggles to reconcile her own big ambitions with her small town life. Memphis, as always, pushes on.
Shot over five years by director David Zucker in his feature debut, YOUR FRIEND, MEMPHIS is an unflinchingly intimate and emotional portrait of a young man finding his place in the world. Memphis’ story is one of dogged determination: to bridge the distance between the world’s expectations of him and his own aspirations, no matter what.
