The Inner Jungle and America

With director Juan Barrero and Gala Pérez Iñesta in person, followed by live music by Gala Pérez Iñesta



The Inner Jungle (La Jungla Interior)

Spain. Dir. Juan Barrero. 2013, 75 mins. U.S. premiere. DCP courtesy of Eddie Saeta. With Gala Pérez Iñesta. Filmmaking doesn’t get more intimate than Juan Barrero’s unique autobiographical film The Inner Jungle. The main on-camera subject is Barrero’s girlfriend, Gala Pérez Iñesta. Before a long scientific expedition to the Galapagos Islands, Juan takes Gala to his childhood town, where they talk about their future plans. When he returns from the jungle five months later to find that Gala is pregnant, Barrero uses his camera to candidly—and lyrically—record the wide range of feelings that pass between the couple. Evocatively drawing links between his own life and Darwin’s account of an orchid’s and mosquito’s symbiosis through insemination, Barrero’s film expresses the strange combination of terror and amazement surrounding romance and pregnancy. Iñesta, who is shown in the film to be a superb violinist, will give a brief live performance after the screening. The film premiered at Viennale.

Preceded by America

U.S./France. Dir. Valerie Massadian. 2013, 7 mins. U.S. premiere. DCP from M’Aidez Films. During a trip to Seattle, French filmmaker Massadian (whose Nana was in First Look 2012) was given one reel of 35mm film and one day to make a film in one shot. The result is a lush meditation on love filmed deep in a Northwestern forest. The film premiered at Locarno Film Festival. 

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