Event Description
This is the second event in the new series Novedades/Lançamentos: New Scholarship @ Berkeley. In this space, we highlight new work from Berkeley scholars about Latin America and the Caribbean by inviting a faculty member and a graduate student to discuss the recent work of a Berkeley faculty member.
Nicolás Pereda’s ninth film and his latest work, Fauna, is a sly, comedic take on how violence in Mexico has infiltrated popular imagination. The film’s ingenious framing devices, elegant widescreen compositions, and dusty hues are perfectly attuned to its suspenseful yet playful stratagems. With his mischievous and nimble dissection of archetypal roles, Pereda proves the great pleasure in the telling, enlisting our imagination at each step of the way.
Speakers
Nicolás Pereda is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Film and Media Studies. A filmmaker whose work explores the everyday through fractured and elliptical narratives using fiction and documentary tools. His work has been the subject of more than 30 retrospectives worldwide in venues such as Anthology Film Archive, Pacific Film Archive, Jeonju International Film Festival, and TIFF Cinematheque. He has also presented his films in most major international film festivals including Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Locarno, and Toronto, as well as in galleries and museums like the Reina Sofía in Madrid, the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris, the Guggenheim, and MoMA in New York. In 2010 he was awarded the Premio Orizzonti at the Venice Film Festival.
Jeffrey Skoller is an Associate Professor in the Department of Film and Media Studies. He is a filmmaker and writer, and teaches film/video production and courses on the histories and theories of experimental/avant-garde film and video art, documentary/non-fiction film, Third Cinema, activist, and other counter-media practices.
Lázaro González is a Ph.D. candidate in Film & Media and an award-winning filmmaker. His areas of interest include queer cinema, non-fiction storytelling, and Latin American film and media production.