Cesar Ramos and Alejandro de la Madrid in "Four Moons" at the Figge Art Museum -- June 11.
Sunday, June 11, 4 p.m.
Figge Art Museum, 225 West Second Street, Davenport IA
With the Mexican drama described by Letras Libres as "a movie about what makes us human [and the] hope of a better tomorrow, no matter how hard it seems," writer/director Sergio Tovar Velarde's Four Moons will be screened at Davenport's Figge Art Museum on June 11, this 2014 critical hit the second of four award-winning independent films to be shown throughout June in recognition and celebration of Gay Pride Month.
One of only 14 films shortlisted by Mexico to be their submission for the 2015 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Four Moons delivers a quartet of interwoven and complex stories about love and acceptance of both self and others. Over the course of the movie, audiences will be introduced to a boy who has secretly been attracted to his male cousin throughout his lifetime, while another vignette focuses on two college students who initiate a secret relationship. In a third segment, the feelings of a deeply committed couple are severely tested by the arrival of another man, while Four Moons' fourth short film concerns an old married man who becomes dazzled by a young married male, and who consequently hustles to get back to his own family.
Featured in Velarde's cast are Mexican performers Antonio Velázquez, Alejandro de la Madrid, César Ramos, Gustavo Egelhaaf, Alejandro Belmonte, Karina Gidi, Juan Manuel Bernal, and Alonso Echánove, the latter of whom was nominated for an Ariel Award for Best Supporting Actor for his Four Moons role. The movie currently holds an 86-percent "freshness" rating on the review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes, with the audience score of more than 250 reviews resulting in 95-percent approval. With the Village Voice calling the work "a film that engenders resonant empathy" and the New York Times deeming it "a spirited and sensitive portrait of gay boys and men in 21st-century Mexico," Velarde's achievement is potentially even more timely now than it was in its 2014 debut, as Excelsior magazine labeled the release "a movie for the open-minded people that fight day by day against the absurd culture we live in nowadays."
Four Moons will be screened in the John Deere Auditorium on June 11, admission to the 4 p.m. event is free, and more information is available by calling (563)326-7804 and visiting FiggeArtMuseum.org.
