Ithaca College

The Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival (FLEFF) and Cinemapolis present EPICENTRO, the new documentary by Hubert Sauper (DARWIN’S NIGHTMARE, WE COME AS FRIENDS) that probes Cuba, imperialism, race, utopia, and cinema. 

EPICENTRO is currently playing at Cinemapolis Virtual Cinema. 

Dr. Enrique Gonzalez-Conty from Ithaca College and Dr. Cecelia Lawless from Cornell University will facilitate the talk back on the film on Thursday September 17 from 6 p.m. -7:15 p.m. 

You can see the film anytime prior to Sept 17 for a nominal charge  and also register here for the Talk Back: https://cinemapolis.org/film/epicentro/  

EPICENTRO is an immersive and metaphorical portrait of post-colonial, “utopian” Cuba, where the 1898 explosion of the USS Maine still resonates.  

This Big Bang ended Spanish colonial dominance in the Americas and ushered in the era of the American Empire.  At the same time and place, a powerful tool of conquest was born: cinema as propaganda. 

In his latest film, Hubert Sauper explores a century of interventionism and myth-making together with the extraordinary people of Havana — who he calls “young prophets” — to interrogate time, imperialism and cinema itself. 

Dr. Enrique González-Conty is Assistant Professor of Spanish and Co-coordinator of the Latin American Studies program at Ithaca College. His research focuses on Caribbean Literature and Film, literary history, theories of the archive, and the New Latin American cinema. He is currently working on his book manuscript titled Archiving the Revolution: Claiming History in Cuban Literature and Film that examines the role of literature and film in the construction of the Cuban Revolutionary Filmic Archive. 

Dr. Cecelia Lawless has a background in film studies and architecture and teaches in the Spanish section of Romance Studies at Cornell University. She has twice received a Fulbright grant to Merida, Venezuela, where she taught courses in urban studies and film at la Universidad de los Andes and conducted research on Latin American documentaries that focus on urban sites. She has published Making Home in Havana (Rutgers, 2002), as well as a number of articles on film and on architectural concepts in literature. She has a research interest in Cuban film and literature.   

FLEFF: A DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENT