Jean Gentil
Apr 27 - May 03, 2012
(Laura Amelia Guzmán and Israel Cárdenas, Mexico/Dominican Republic, 2010, 35mm, 84 min)
Directors in attendance Fri-Sun!
Right before Haiti’s 2010 earthquake, husband and wife Israel Cárdenas and Laura Amelia Guzmán traveled to the island to shoot Jean Gentil, whose gentleman hero, Jean Remy, loses his job teaching French and must scramble for work in Santo Domingo. Jean is a character of stoic faith, shaped by the precise attention of Guzmán, who is Dominican; but even he must flee Santo Domingo to tend to his spirit in the lonely countryside. The wonder of Jean Gentil is its ability to follow Jean’s every hardship, as well as to stand in the shadow of the earthquake that would strike during production, and yet, in focusing so closely on one man’s actions and reactions, to rise above the grimness of its setting and circumstance.
"A mesmerizing, beautiful drama, Jean Gentil is the rare film that teaches one to see...This is a film about suffering and grace that lingers in the memory." –The Seattle Times
"Jean Gentil shares a certain searching quality that marked the best of Bresson’s films—and for once, the inevitable analogy with his work seems appropriate." –Time Out New York
"contemplative, gorgeously shot documentary-fiction hybrid...Cardenas and Guzman's film suggests something universal in Jean's plight." –The Village Voice
