In Suchitoto, a village in El Salvador, Alejandro Cotto (1927-2015) is celebrating his 63^rd birthday while the youth are celebrating the end of the nightmare of the civil war. Cotto, a pioneer of Salvadoran cinema speaks to Escalón about cinema in the name of Third World artists who wrestle with the paucity of means. Alejandro Cotto recounts not only the greatness and misery of his career, but also the horror of war, the fate of his village, and the path of his dreams. After all, it takes a big dreamer like him to envision making “great cinema” in the depths of a village in Central America. Escalón uses excerpts from Cotto’s films extensively, demonstrating the versatility of his filmography, including the last film, Universo menor, started in 1979 that remains unfinished, in which Cotto films his passion, the popular rural festivals of El Salvador

(El Salvador/Canada)

Writers: Mary Ellen Davis & Guillermo Escalón

GUILLERMO ESCALÓN is a Salvadoran filmmaker living and working in Canada.  He directed his first film in 1973, the documentary Guatemala, dos religiones, and collaborated with Baltazar Polío as cameraman in his film Topiltzín (1975).  Escalón established a production team with Manuel Sorto, called Zero to the Left, that joined the System Radio Venceremos to help with the production of films for the Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (ERP) (Revolutionary Army of the People). He directed Carta de Morazán (1982) and Tiempo de audacia (1983), a narrative feature film about the US support to the Salvadoran army. When peace was made in El Salvador, the filmmaker committed his efforts to the process of rescuing the country’s film heritage. It is in this process that he was able to make the documentary Alejandro (1993), for which he restored the film material of the work of Alejandro Cotto that was discovered in  rusted cans at the Apolo movie theater in San Salvador.. . Since 1998, Escalón has worked on several Brazilian, Guatemalan, and Italian co-productions as a cinematographer, director and producer. His filmography includes

The Illuminated of the Volcano (2002, Guatemala), What Sebastian Dreamed (2001, Guatemala), Le pays hanté (2000, Guatemala), Princess (1999,England/Italy), Miguel Angel of Asturias (1999, France), Antonio et Hélène (1999, France), In the Company of Fear (1998, Canada), Ixcan (1998, Italy/England), Alexander (1993, El Salvador), and The Decision to Win (1981, El Salvador).

The Carnegie Museum of Art in partnership with Row House Cinema presents the 58th Carnegie International Film Festival curated by Rasha Salti. The festival opens at Row House Cinema on Friday March 3 and runs through Sunday, March 11.   

—–Showtimes—–
Alejandro – 3/6/23 @ 7:00 pm
Alejandro – 3/7/23 @ 5:45 pm