juan alejandro ramirez · · OTROtono · · www.otrotono.com

“Nunca supe a donde quise llegar, solo sé que he peleado toda mi vida."

 

2010



". . . the poet of the downtrodden. Ramirez’s inimitable style might be termed aestheticized melancholy."   - Sarajevo Film Festival

•  U P D A T E S  •

indieWIRE's  Howard Feinstein on Ten Films to Watch . . . 

Nobody Special (Nadie Especial)

Peruvian national Juan Alejandro Ramirez, . . . is probably the only filmmaker whose work-in-progress I would include on this list. He is, to put it mildly, special. No sellout, he. His films (Porter, Diary of the End) are never longer than one-half hour and have a commercial potential of zero. His trademark style includes a lyrical mix of fiction and documentary (they look like docs, but the scenes are often re-stagings of real, or at least possible, events and actions), wide-angle and close-in shots, haunting voiceover, and a sincere empathy for the underclasses in Peru. Nobody Special centers on three Peruvian women from three eras, all of whom lead difficult lives, but there is diversity, therefore grace, in their differences.

indieWIRE   March 19, 2010



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Juan Alejandro Ramirez was recently Guest Lecturer at the European Film College in Ebeltoft, Denmark. He presented a selection of his filmography and discussed his work method with the 2009-2010 Class of the prestigious Pan-European institution. Faraway from Here (Muy Lejos de Aqui), Porter (Solo un Cargador) and Diary of the End (Diario del Fin) were screened as a means to illustrating challenges and resolutions to different situations filmmakers face in the production of author-driven Non-Fiction work.

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click to read interview
RECENT Presentations





O T H E R   T I T L E S   by Juan Alejandro Ramirez

 
















•  IDFA  •  Cinéma du Réel  •  It's All True  •  Documenta Madrid 2007  •  DOCPoint Helsinki  •  Punto de Vista  •  RIDM Montréal  •  Plus Camerimage  •  Docupolis  • DOCLisboa  •  San Diego  •  Chicago  •  Indianápolis  •  DOCUSUR  •  Toulouse  •  Festival des 3 Amériques  •  Montecatini  •  Cinememoria EDOC  •  Las Americas  •  Vila do Conde  •  Festival de Lima  •  Sarajevo  •  Ajaccio  •  Los Angeles  •  Muestra Iberoamericana Madrid  •  Aarhus  •  Eurasia Antalya  •  MARFICI  •  DocuDays  •  Bruxelles  •  Dokumenter Jogjakarta  •  Havana-New York  •  Festival de la Memoria  •



 

"Alguna Tristeza is poetry -- oral as well as visual. This is what filmmaking is all about. How do you package a message without sacrificing images and metaphors?"
-Mukul Khurana. The Weekend Ahead

"Juan Alejandro Ramirez is one of the most poetic documentarians working today."
 -Howard Feinstein. indieWIRE / Variety

"La pensée de Juan Alejandro Ramirez est circulaire. Lorsque sa parole lance una idée, elle effectue un joli tour autour d’elle, la répète, et finit par lui faire gagner sa propre profondeur. Son film lui ressemble, il ne cessa se dessiner des cercles, des détours, des sillons colores jusqu’a celui sur lequel s’achève le film et qui questionne un avenir en même temps qu’il tente de le saisir. Dans ce long poème que seule la contemplation peut dire, le spectateur est convie par l’auteur au voyage d’une question, d’une ritournelle parmi les palpitations s’un pays, sa petite musique intérieure, ses montagnes filmées telles ses hommes et ses hommes tel ses montagnes: “C’est quoi être Péruvien?”
j
                                                                                                                                                                                      -Ronan Govys. Cinéma du Réel. Paris



MENCION SPECIELE PRIX DU PATRIMOINE
Cinéma du Reél International Film Festival
BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM
Jornada Internacional de Cinema da Bahia
BEST EXPERIMENTAL FILM
San Diego International Film Festival

PREMIO CTAV SAV MINC
Jornada Internacional de Cinema da Bahia

BEST FILM SCREENPLAY
Cuenca Internacional Film Festival

BEST DOCUMENTARY SPECIAL MENTION
Festival de la Memoria
ONDA CURTA GRAND JURY AWARD
Vila do Conde International Film Festival
GRAND JURY SPECIAL MENTION
Cuenca International Film Festival
SPECIAL HONORARY MENTION
DocuSur International Film Festival
Cinéma du Réel link




A L G U N A   T R I S T E Z A

(Some Kind of Sadness)

© 2006

A group of seemingly unrelated vignettes emerge as both personal and distant, but always intensely emotional in tone .  .  .  ultimately, shaping up as a sketch-book on some features that seem to mark the lives of those who grow up poor in poor countries. This personal narrative offers neither formulas nor solutions: rather, it is a random pursuit for answers that unravels into a series of powerful, lyrical epiphanies. A sharp eye for detail and a stirring poetic narration turn the images of this film into a moving metaphor for all kinds of inequities.
Interview RADIO FRANCE INTERNATIONAL


 






 
 
























“ . . . transcendental poetry in a work that approaches the sublime.”
 
- New Directors / New Films. MoMA New York

 
"A beautiful portrait, meticulously filmed . . . a film with a human face."
 
- Rotterdam International Film Festival

 
" . . . Ramírez has built a work of art in this poetic journey of his concept of a self-loathing porter."
 
- IN SHOWS. Performance and Films
 
 
“ . . . an intensely meditative voice-over . . . The final effect, and the slight sense of hope in the closing shot,
results in a work of devastating beauty."

- Indianapolis International Film Festival

 


 


 
AN   O F F I C I A L   S E L E C T I O N   A T

ROTTERDAM  •  SUNDANCE  •  NEW DIRECTORS / NEW FILMS  •  TAMPERE  •  FRIBOURG  •  BILBAO 
SILVERDOCS  •  LATIN BEAT at Lincoln Center  •  HUESCA  •  CORK  •  SARAJEVO  •   RAINDANCE
RIDM MONTREAL  •  KASSEL  •  LONDON  •  FIDOCS  •  JIHLAVA  •  CALGARY  •  KERALA  •  VILA DO CONDE
SAO PAULO  SHORT  •  JORNADA DA BAHIA  •  DRAMA  •  MOSTRA DE SAO PAULO  •  TORONTO LATINO
CARTAGENA  •  BARCELONA INDEPENDENT  •  SIENA  •  IMAGES DU NOUVEAU MONDE   •  LA AMNESTY
SAN DIEGO  •  MANCHESTER  •  MONTEVIDEO  •  ARIZONA  •  CHICAGO LATINO  •  BELO HORIZONTE
NASHVILLE  •  AUBAGNE  •  LAS AMERICAS  •  TRENTO   •  NAFA  •  GOTTINGEN  •  LOS ANGELES LATINO
TOULOUSE   •  ONE WORLD PRAGUE  •  INDIANAPOLIS  •  WASHINGTON  •  CINEMEMORIA  •  PARNU
ALL ROADS  •  WELLINGTON  •  ROME  •  PROVINCETOWN  •  DRETS HUMANS BARCELONA  •  BOLOGNA
VANCOUVER  •  TERRES EN VUES  •  ARMAND HAMMER  •  BRATISLAVA  •  BOSTON
CPHDOX Copenhagen  •  PITTSBURGH  •  PARIS SAN ANTONIO  •  SYDNEY  •  BELGRADE 
KATHMANDU  •  ETNIA  •  TAOS  •  FAJR  •  CAIRO

 

 


 


GRAND PRIX COURTOUJOURS
Rencontres Cinémas d'Amérique Latine
STERLING AWARD BEST SHORT
Silverdocs / American Film Institute Film Festival
GRAND JURY PRIZE BEST SHORT
Indianapolis International Film Festival
BEST SHORT FEATURE AWARD
Human Rights Nights International Film Festival

BEST NARRATIVE SHORT
San Diego Latino International Film Festival

BEST DIRECTOR AWARD
Jornada Internacional de Cinema da Bahia

BEST SHORT FEATURE AWARD
Las Americas International Film Festival

GRAND PRIX DU NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
Festival International du film de d'Autrans
GRAND PRIX DOCUMENTAIRE
Festival International du Film d'Aubagne
GRAND JURY SPECIAL MENTION
Belo Horizonte International Film Festival
GRAND JURY HONORABLE DISTINCTION
International Film Festival in Drama
PRIX TEUEIKAN MENCION SPECIELE
Terres en Vues Montreal

N e w   D i r e c t o r s  /  N e w   F i l m s
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and The Film Society of Lincoln Center

A darker, more troubling, but no less transcendent philosophical exercise  . . .  Porter, by Juan Alejandro Ramirez, is about one fictionalized cargador, brought to life in an uncannily penetrating first-person voiceover constructed by Ramirez from various accounts by these peasant laborers.

In this intensely subjective, stream-of-consciousness monologue . . . (a porter) shares his often astonishingly acute thoughts about his low place in the world, his hopes and failings, and his invisibility to the gringos who are so dependent on him, however briefly.

This is not a sentimental, self-satisfied story celebrating a group of unfortunates. Ramirez does something very different by having the porter, the Other, seemingly take control of the storytelling and the images, making him a true subject, and not the object of either scorn or pity. The effect of hearing this voice is devastating, pointing out as he does the chasms in understanding between people.

-Elizabeth Helfgott  FILM COMMENT  May-June 2004


O T H E R   P R E S S      Solo un Cargador      (Click on link)
New Directors/New Films
Rotterdam Film Festival
New Directors/New Films
Festivals
Sarajevo IFF
Sundance at MoMA
Sundance Premiere

 

Muy Lejos de Aqui      •      Me Dicen Yovo      •      Todo y Nada

 

 

 

 

 

M U Y   L E J O S   D E   A Q U I

(Faraway from Here) © 1999

 



”This excellent erudite travel diary, of the filmmaker's journeys throughout his homeland and India, (allows) the sights and events the camera eye captures during the trip lead to a convoluted, but always fascinating, contemplation of friendship, alienation and the patronisation of the so called Third World by the so called developed nations.”

- REELSCREEN. London

 

.  MANNHEIM  .  RIO DE JANEIRO .  SARAJEVO  .  LONDON  .  BARCELONA  .  ST. PETERSBURG  .  CORK  .  MOSTRA DE SAO PAULO  .  KRAKOW  .  CHICAGO  .  VILA DO CONDE  .  MONTEVIDEO  .  FILM FRA SOR  .  SAN DIEGO  .   BRITISH FILM FESTIVAL  .  MAR DEL PLATA  .  NEW YORK EXPO

 

 

 

M E   D I C E N   Y O V O

(I'm a Yovo) © 1995

 

“I’m a Yovo unveils a rare picture of the Third World as seen from the Third World.”

- Michael Schmitz. WAS DUSSELDORF

 

.  MONTREAL  .  SAN SEBASTIAN  .  MANNHEIM  .  OBERHAUSEN  .  FRIBOURG  .  CORK  .  CHICAGO  .  FESPACO  .  COPENHAGEN  .  FILM FRA SOR  .  BOMBAY  .  ETHNOFILMFEST  .   VILA DO CONDE  .  NEW YORK AFRICAN DIASPORA  .  SAO PAULO  .  TOULOUSE  .  BAHIA  . 

 

 

 

 

 

T O D O   Y   N A D A

(All and Nothing) © 1993

 

" . . . this film succeeds in permeating the audience with a feeling of longing for the past that all men - whether fortunate or not - radiate when far and away from their origins."
                                                                                                           
- Julia Cabale. LA TRIBUNA DEL FESTIVAL. LA HABANA

 

.  MONTREAL  .  LA HABANA  .  BERLIN  .  BAHIA  .  TOULOUSE  .  NEFF  .  MONTEVIDEO  .  CAMBRIDGE  .  CHICAGO  .

 
Location Still. Iquitos, January 2005

 

 

For further information contact   ramirez@otrotono.com