Please join us for a roundtable discussion featuring documentarians Cecilia Aldarondo (Landfall, 2020) and Claudia Sparrow (Máxima, 2019), as well as producer and founder of Latin Reel, Jesús Hernández. The roundtable will be followed by a Q&A session.
(Re)framing Climate Change in Film
UConn Reads Sponsored Event
Documentary films have played a major role in exploring the multiple factors involved in the present environmental situation. They are multidimensional narratives that focus on the individual stories, reframing our preconceptions and create awareness and action. We would like to present two documentaries that accomplish this goal. Cecilia Aldarondo’s Landfall (2020) addresses Hurricane Maria and its repercussions in Puerto Rico and Claudia Sparrow’s Máxima (2019) discusses indigenous land rights in Peru.
Documentaries will be available to the UConn community for viewing before the event.
Updated information will be made available at the website: http://bit.ly/2QDZtrv
Organized by graduate students in the Literature, Cultures and Languages Department
For more information, please contact
Andrea Morcillo andrea.morcillo_dominguez@uconn.edu
Paul Noguerol paul.noguerol@uconn.edu
Angela Pitassi angela.pitassi@uconn.edu
Cecilia Aldarondo
Cecilia Aldarondo is a documentary director-producer from the Puerto Rican diaspora who works at the intersection of poetics and politics. Her feature documentaries Memories of a Penitent Heart (2016) and Landfall (2020) premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and were co-produced by the award-winning PBS series POV. Landfall's many awards include the 2020 DOC NYC Film Festival Viewfinders Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary, as well as Cinema Eye and Film Independent Spirit Award nominations. Among Aldarondo's fellowships and honors are the Guggenheim, a two-time MacDowell Colony Fellowship, the 2021 New America Fellowship, and Women at Sundance 2017. In 2019 she was named to DOC NYC's 40 Under 40 list and is one of 2015’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film. She teaches at Williams College.
Claudia Sparrow
Born and raised in Lima, Peru, Claudia has been recognized as one of the ten most prominent filmmakers in Peru. Her film I Remember You, starring Stefanie Butler (Stranger Things) and Joe Egender (The Night of), had a theatrical and VOD release in 2016. Her American Film Institute thesis film El Americano, shot in Lima and Los Angeles, won an Emmy Award in the drama category. Claudia is also the recipient of the Franklin J. Schaffner Fellow Award for directing El Americano. She is a 2018 Film Independent fellow.
Jesus Hernandez
Jesus Hernandez has a BFA in Film Directing from the University of Arts in Havana. During his career, he has worked with directors like Fernando Perez, Fatih Akin, Paddy Breathnach, Michelle Memran, and Eugene Jarecki. He has lived in New York City since November 2014 where he coordinated Documentary Fortnight at MoMA and worked at the Nantucket Film Festival. He founded Bach Media and has several projects in the USA as well as in Cuba. He has worked at Charlotte Street Films with film director Eugene Jarecki since 2016 as Associate Producer and Production Manager of The King, premiered in 2017 Cannes Film Festival and US Premiere at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. In 2019 he founded Latin Reel, a social impact initiative focused on addressing equity, diversity, and inclusion through film.
For more information, contact: Eduardo Urios-Aparisi at eduardo.urios-aparisi@uconn.edu