'Little Spain' de Manhattan chega em grande tela, documentando a imigração latino-americano na cidade de Nova York: diferenças entre revisões

According to the film's content and press release, {{w|Little Spain}} was populated by Spaniards, Puerto Ricans, and other Hispanic immigrants, located south Chelsea and {{w|West Village}}, around the west end of 14th Street. The interviewees in the film explain the Spaniards tended to live in close proximity to one another; and, in many cases, in close proximity

to Spanish-speakers from countries other than Spain — such as Puerto Ricans in New York.

 

In the film, the Spanish-American director & journalist Artur Balder trace the journey of those who left Spain and South America in search of a better life in the United States, describing the story of its most important entrance port, New York City, and the formation of the Little Spain community. After a preliminar exposition, the interviewees, including actual director of La Nacional, Robert Sanfiz, who is by the way the leading voice of the film, start describing the area as they remember it. Cites from the New York Times, pronounced by a voice over credited as Bob Smith tat sounds like Sanfiz's, settle the transitions between the different episodes: immigration in the XIXth century, Spanish Civil War, the 50s and 60s, personal memories. There is a musical interlude with a flamenco performance filmed at La Nacional. Pictures of Al Pacino at a flamenco party, NYC mayor Dinkins visiting the street festival of Santiago Apóstol, follow the animated expositions of old pictures. Marine merchant Francisco Santamaría describes his arrival to Little Spain in the 50s. Thereafter José Pérez tells the story of {{w|El Faro Restaurant}}, opened in 1932, and the important of Valentín Aguirre. A new interlude, this time displaying footage of the last Santiago Apóstol street festival is edited in contrast with actual footage of San Gennaro festival at Mulberry St, {{w|Little Italy}} . New old pictures and descriptions of more personal memories compose a kind of visual coda at the end of the film, as a final homage to the now disappeared neighborhood.

 

Well into the 1960s, with Spanish still commonly-spoken on 14th Street, the film also displays footage of the Santiago Apóstol, or St. James Day, festival, which "died out" in the early 1990s as a consequence of the steady exodus of the remnants of the Hispanic community from that part of the city.

 

Artur Balder works closely with New York's {{w|Museum of Modern Art}} (MoMA) and the {{w|Film Society of the Lincoln Center}} in order to show the film in NYC. He is currently preparing two new projects: ''The Reality of the Imaginary'', with Nobel prize-winner {{w|Mario Vargas Llosa}} and Cervantes literature Award recipient {{w|José Manuel Caballero Bonald}}, on a documentary about artist {{w|Joan Castejón}}, expected to premier at the MoMA in 2015. The second project being with Armenian-American painter {{w|Tigran Tsitoghdzyan}} and renowned art critic {{w|Donald Kuspit}}.