Events
2025 Film Series

Música, Sound, Espacios: A Latin American and Spanish Film Series
This series is brought to you by the Department of Humanities and Cultural Studies, USF Humanities Institute, Institute for the Study of Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Film Analysis and Appreciation Club. The Spanish Film Club series was made possible with the support of Pragda, SPAIN arts & culture, and the Secretary of State for Culture of Spain.

Chico and Rita
(Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal, Tono Errando, Spain-UK, 2012)
About the Film
Cuba, 1948. Chico is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and desire unite them as they chase their dreams and each other from Havana to New York to Paris, Hollywood and Las Vegas. With an original soundtrack by legendary Cuban pianist and five-time Grammy®-winning composer Bebo Valdés, Chico & Rita captures a defining moment in the evolution of history and jazz, and features the music of (and animated cameos by) Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Cole Porter, Dizzy Gillespie, Woody Herman, Tito Puente, Chano Pozo, and others.
About the Director
Fernando Trueba is a multi-award-winning writer, director and producer. The Age Of Beauty (Belle Epoque), starring Penelope Cruz, won both the Oscar® and BAFTA for Best Foreign Language Film. Trueba’s last film The Dancer And The Thief (El baile de la victoria) was Spain’s submission to the 2010 Academy® Awards, and received 10 Goya® Academy Award nominations.
It was with Trueba’s Latin jazz documentary Calle 54 that he began his collaboration and friendship with Javier Mariscal. Mariscal is an artist and designer based in Barcelona. His design, Cobi, was chosen as the official mascot of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. He wrote and directed the animated television series The Cobi Troup and co-directed Chico & Rita. Mariscal’s brother Tono Errando worked as a director of commercials and music videos before directing the popular animated television series Twipsy.
Thursday, September 18, 2025
5:30 PM
Marshall Student Center 4200
4103 Cedar Circle, Tampa, FL 33620
Oscar®-winning director Fernando Trueba (Belle Epoque, Calle 54) and Spain’s legendary illustrator Javier Mariscal celebrate their passion for the music and culture of Cuba with an epic story of love, passion, and heartbreak.
*This film is animated, but is not suitable for children
Tambores da Diáspora (Diaspora Drums)
(João Nascimento, Brazil, 2021)
About the Film
Directed by João Nascimento, the documentary intertwines percussion performances and instruments with themes such as cultural racism, traditional drumming, technological drumming, African mythologies, and other contemporary sounds.
From the perspective of important people from the universe of percussion, the film features exclusive interviews with Paulo Dias (Associação Cultural Cachuera); Beth Belli (Regent of the Block Ilú Obá de Mim); Dinho Nascimento (Orquestra de Berimbaus do Morro do Querosene); Hélio Nogueira (Luthier from Atabaques, resident of Morro do Querosene); Silvanny Sivuca (percussionist in the Emicida band); Fernando Alabê (founder of Bloco Ilú Inã); Simone Sou (percussionist); Aluá Nascimento (former member of Stomp); Enoque Santos (dancer); Pedro Bandeira (Cuban percussionist from Aláfia); Dinho Gonçalves (Percussionist), and Marcos Suzano (percussionist).
About the Director
João Nascimento is a multi-language artist, filmmaker, and researcher of black culture in the diaspora. He trained in caruru parties, batuques, sambas de roda, and capoeira movements in the backyard of his house in Morro do Querosene. He graduated in Music Production at the Universidade Anhembi Morumbi and he is the founding director of Instituto Nação and coordinator of Ponto de Cultura Afrobase. Nascimento directed, wrote, and soundtracked the feature film Danças Negras; directed, wrote, and soundtracked the feature film, Diaspora Drums (Tambores da Diáspora); and directed the web series Escola do Samba, produced in 2021 by Kalakuta Films. Member of Frente 3 de Fevereiro since 2004, he co-created the medium-length film Zumbi Somos Nós.
Founding director of Cia Treme Terra and a percussion teacher since 1999, Nascimento has performed as a percussionist in several countries, such as Germany, the United States, France, Cuba, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Norway, Sweden, and England.
Thursday, September 25, 2025
5:30 PM
Marshall Student Center 2500 Oval Theater
4103 Cedar Circle, Tampa, FL 33620
Using stories, batucadas, and songs, Diaspora Drums addresses a political and cultural vision embedded in the course of two drums of African origin and their ramifications in Brazil, which move through rituals, cultural manifestations, musical productions, and social celebrations.
Boca Chica
(Gabriella A. Moses, Dominican Republic, 2023)
About the Film
Director Gabriella A. Moses exposes the community’s complicity by way of twelve-year-old Desi who is constantly exposed to unwanted advances and crude comments from older men, both visiting and homegrown. She works at the family restaurant alongside her mother Carmen, who encourages the behavior, in a once serene beachside town now bustling with foreign tourists.
Music is Desi’s escape. She dreams of parlaying her nascent musical talents into a full-fledged singing career. When she stumbles across a group of local rappers that set themselves apart from the scene, her passions begin to boil to the surface. She seeks to avoid the common fate of growing mature before her time and falling prey to the morally bankrupt adults in her life who encourage her to forgo her innocence for profit.
Boca Chica explores themes of identity, family, codependency, and truth, and exposes how local social norms present the sexualization of very young girls as a path to survival.
About the Director
Gabriella A. Moses is an award-winning Dominican-Guyanese American writer and director based in Brooklyn, NY. She is a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Gabriella has received support from the Sundance Institute, New York Women in Film & TV, Tribeca Film Institute, The Black List, and SFFILM. She was most recently featured on the 2023 Black List Latinx List and was selected for the 2022 LALIFF x Netflix Latinx Inclusion Fellowship Program with her short Sin Raíces.
Her directorial debut, the feature film Boca Chica (2023), was filmed in the Dominican Republic. The film premiered in the International Narrative Competition at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival, where she won the prestigious 11th Annual Nora Ephron Award.
Gabriella believes in sharing stories with underrepresented protagonists that test viewers’ perceptions of identity and their imaginations.
Thursday, October 2, 2025
5:30 PM
Marshall Student Center 4200
4103 Cedar Circle, Tampa, FL 33620
Beautifully juxtaposing the realities and expectations of a young girl approaching womanhood in the Dominican Republic, Boca Chica shines a light on the insidious child sex trade and the lives it seeks to destroy.
*TW: mention of child sexual abuse
Special Guests: Introduction by Dr. Molly Hamm-Rodriguez (USF, College of Education) and Q&A with director Gabriella A. Moses
La Singla
(Paloma Zapata, Spain-Germany, 2023)
About the Film
When Antonia Singla graced the stage, she did so without hearing the music. Born deaf to a Romani family in the suburbs of Barcelona, La Singla—as she would affectionately come to be called—rose to international acclaim by the age of 17. Quite literally moving to the beat of her own drum, La Singla’s pistol-like percussions were nothing short of revolutionary, gripping the world of flamenco with a dynamism never before experienced. But at the height of her fame, La Singla disappeared from the dance stage, leaving a scattered archival legacy of the world’s best bailaora behind.
Paloma Zapata’s hybrid film stunningly weaves the past and present together, expertly layering archival footage with passionate music and sound. One question drives her forward—to find La Singla herself and finally hear, in the dancer’s own words, the heartbreaking story of her life.
About the Director
Born in Murcia in 1979, Paloma Zapata holds a degree in Fine Arts and a Master’s in Creative Documentary. In 2008, she founded her production company, La Fábrica Naranja, in Barcelona. Since then, she has built an impressive career as a director, editor, and producer, specializing in international music videos and documentaries.
Deeply rooted in the music world, Zapata’s films have been broadcast on platforms such as Movistar+, Al Jazeera, TVE, and TV3. Her films premiered at renowned festivals like BAFICI (Argentina) and Guadalajara (Mexico).
In 2020, her film Peret: Yo soy la rumba was nominated for the Gaudí Awards by the Catalan Film Academy and received the Ministry of Culture award in Yalta, presented by Nikita Mikhalkov.
In 2022, she developed the documentary project La Singla (a Spanish-German co-production). The documentary participated in international laboratories and forums such as San Sebastián, DocsBarcelona, DOK.FEST Munich, Sunny Side of the Doc. It got the first prize at Abycine LANZA and DocsValencia. The film was part of the international program Circle Women Doc Accelerator in Serbia, Croatia, and Italy.
Thursday, October 9, 2025
5:30 PM
Marshall Student Center 4200
4103 Cedar Circle, Tampa, FL 33620
As one of the greatest mysteries in Flamenco history, La Singla is more than just a film about a child flamenco artist, the Roma community, and the deaf community. This flamenco prodigy—who toured Europe with a young Paco de Lucía and shared the stage with the legendary Ella Fitzgerald—vanished at the height of her fame. This suspense thriller will uncover the universal story of an extraordinary woman whose mysterious gaze, unparalleled expression, and deep connection to flamenco art will captivate, move, and inspire audiences worldwide.
Special Guest: Introduction and discussion with Dr. Joanne Britland (University of Ƶ, Asst. Prof of Spanish and Digital Humanities)
La Cocina (The Kitchen)
(Alonso Ruizpalacios, Mexico-U.S., 2024)
About the Film
Pedro—one of Mexico’s most-coveted actors Raúl Briones,—is a fiery and charismatic undocumented Mexican cook who struggles to navigate the pressures of his precarious existence. Torn between his dreams of legal status and his volatile reality, Pedro faces mounting tensions when he becomes the prime suspect in a theft investigation. His relationship with Julia—played by Academy Award© nominee Rooney Mara—an American waitress grappling with her own personal conflicts, further complicates his journey as their lives collide in moments of passion, betrayal, and revelation.
Through a mix of dark humor and poignant drama, La Cocina delves into the invisible lives of immigrant workers who keep the city running while enduring systemic exploitation.
The film’s rich ensemble cast and surrealist touches transform the kitchen into a microcosm of societal divides, where every interaction reflects broader struggles of identity, class, and survival.
About the Director
Alonso Ruizpalacios is a Mexican film director and screenwriter. His work consistently places extremely personal, human stories against the Ƶal or contemporary backdrops of very specific times, places, and institutions, highlighting the existential discrepancies that arise in the wake of the systemic injustices that cast shadows over such settings.
Ruizpalacios studied stage directing in Mexico City before moving to London, where he trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA).
His first feature film, ҳ̈Dz (2013), won over 40 prizes in festivals around the world, including Best First Feature at the Berlinale 2013. The film was lauded by critics and won five Ariel Awards in 2015, including Best Picture, Best First Film, and Best Director.
His fourth film, La Cocina (2024), starring Rooney Mara, was selected for the Tribeca Film Festival and won him international recognition. Set in present-day New York City, La Cocina centers around Pedro, an undocumented Mexican immigrant who must grapple with the inconsistencies of the ever-elusive “American Dream.” The film embraces its cultural melting-pot of an environment, detailing the everyday joys and pains of the immigrants who cross paths in the restaurant where they work.
Thursday, October 16, 2025
5:30 PM
Sun Ray Cinema
12332 University Mall Ct, Tampa, FL 33612
Set in the chaotic kitchen of a bustling Times Square restaurant, La Cocina by Alonso Ruizpalacios is a gripping exploration of migration, power dynamics, and the pursuit of the American dream.
Special Guests: Panel discussion with Dr. José Ángel Maldonado (USF, Communication) and Dr. Olivia Cosentino (USF, HCS)
For questions or accommodations, contact Jade V. at jvonwerder@usf.edu