Latin American Film Festival: "Ema" (2019, Chile)

Description

The 2024 Latin American Film Festival continues with Ema, a 2019 film from Chile. The film is in Spanish with English subtitles.

Adoptive parents Ema (Variety's 10 Latinxs to Watch 2020's Mariana Di Girolamo) and Gastón (Gael García Bernal) are artistic free spirits in a contemporary dance troupe whose lives are thrown into chaos when their adopted son Polo is involved in a shockingly violent incident. As her marriage crumbles in the wake of the couple's decision to reverse the adoption, Ema embarks on an odyssey of liberation and self-discovery as she dances and seduces her way into a daring new life. Centering on the sinuous, electrifying art of reggaeton dance, Ema is an incendiary portrait of a lady on fire, the story of an artistic temperament forced to contend with societal pressure and the urge to conform. From one of Chile's greatest living filmmakers, Pablo Larraín, comes a psychologically acute exhumation of Latin American life under restriction featuring an unforgettable heroine who is determined to move freely through the world as she electrifies everyone and everything around her.

The 2024 Latin American Film Festival is hosted by the Program in Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies and co-sponsored by the Aronson Center for International Studies, the Center for Advanced Media Studies, and the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures.