Mexican director Arturo Ripstein to attend Rice Cinema for film retrospective

Franz Brotzen
713-348-6775
franz.brotzen@rice.edu

Mexican director Arturo Ripstein to attend Rice Cinema for film retrospective

Rice Cinema will screen a retrospective of noted Mexican filmmaker Arturo Ripstein’s work Sept. 9-11. Ripstein will attend the film screenings Sept. 9 and 10 and will discuss them with audience members.

The series is free and open to the public and will be shown at Rice Cinema on the Rice University campus, 6100 Main St. For directions, go to www.rice.edu/maps/maps.html.

“The Films of Arturo Ripstein: A Retrospective Film Series” begins Sept. 9 with “El Castillo de la Pureza” (“The Castle of Purity”), the story of a disciplined and sexually driven man who keeps his family isolated in his home for years to protect them from the “evil nature” of human beings while inventing (with his wife) rat poison. Doors open at 6 p.m., and Ripstein will be interviewed at 6:30. The film will be shown at 7 p.m., followed by a reception.

“Principio y Fin” (“Beginning and End”) will screen at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 10. Based on the novel by Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz, “Principio y Fin” tells the story of a middle-class family struggling against poverty after their father’s death. There will be a reception at 5 p.m., and Ripstein and screenwriter Paz Alicia Garciadiego will be interviewed at 6 p.m.

The series ends Sept. 11 with a double feature. “Profundo Carmesi” (“Deep Crimson”) begins at 3 p.m. The film examines the life of a man who preys on unsuspecting women for a living, but is changed when he finds an accomplice in the woman who loves and controls him. And “El Carnaval de Sodoma” (“Crazy Carnival”), in which residents of a bordello scurry to put together their outfits for an annual carnival, screens at 5 p.m.

All films will be shown in Spanish with English subtitles.

The festival is sponsored by Rice University’s Multicultural Community Relations in the Office of Public Affairs, Rice Cinema, the Department of Hispanic Studies and the Mexican Consulate.

For more on the films, go to http://ricecinema.rice.edu/Events.aspx.