La Camioneta

Last updated
La Camioneta
La Camioneta theatrical release.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Mark Kendall
Produced by
  • Rafael González
  • Mark Kendall
  • Executive:
  • Esther B Robinson
CinematographyMark Kendall
Edited byMark Kendall
Shannon Kennedy
Music byT. Griffin
Production
companies
  • Ek Balam Producciones
  • Follow Your Nose Films
Distributed by Emerging Pictures
Release dates
  • March 10, 2012 (2012-03-10)(SXSW Film Festival)
  • May 31, 2013 (2013-05-31)(United States)
Running time
72 minutes
Countries Guatemala
United States
LanguagesEnglish
Spanish

La Camioneta is a 2012 documentary film directed by Mark Kendall. [1] [2] [3] It is an experimental work that follows the transformative journey of a decommissioned American school bus through complex social, political, and economic landscapes. [4] [5] [6]

Contents

Production

Filming began at a school bus auction in Pennsylvania. Kendall met a buyer who had come to the United States as a transmigrant in order to purchase a decommissioned Blue Bird bus. They rode down together on the acquired bus through Mexico and into Guatemala, where it was resold at a junkyard and transformed into a vehicle for public transportation. Kendall explains that "it was equally as vital for me to be on the bus myself as it was to not know where it might end up, who might be its new owner, or what route, if any, it might end up joining." [7]

Release

La Camioneta premiered at the 2012 SXSW Film Festival, [8] had its Guatemalan premiere at the 2012 Festival Ícaro, [9] and premiered internationally at the 2013 Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara, where it was nominated for Best Documentary and Best Director. [10] [11] The film was released theatrically in the United States, Mexico, and Guatemala.

Reception

La Camioneta was well-received critically, with a 100% approval rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes [12] and a score of 83 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 9 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". [13]

Film critics have praised the film as "a brilliant microhistory of our globalized world" [14] often highlighting the surprising payoffs of its conceptual minimalism. [15]

Writing for Variety, Andrew Barker stated that "The film wrings an almost bizarre amount of political, humanistic and spiritual substance out of this limited frame. Kendall's eye for untold stories, as well as his instinct for catching evocatively framed images on the fly, mark him as a name to watch". [16] The film was selected as a New York Times Critics' Pick by Stephen Holden, who described the film as "an upbeat story of resilience, regeneration and artistic imagination." [17] In J. Hoberman's review for BLOUIN ARTINFO, he wrote that "La Camioneta is a poetic, even dreamy, film that ultimately conveys the mystical sense of a transmigrated (mechanical) soul." [18]

La Camioneta was named as one of IndieWire's “Top Docs of 2013” and one of Fandor's “Best Political Films of 2013.” [19]

At the IDA Documentary Awards, the film received the David L. Wolper Award. [20]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harmony Korine</span> American film director and screenwriter

Harmony Korine is an American filmmaker, actor, photographer, artist, and author. His methods feature an erratic, loose and transgressive aesthetic, exploring taboo themes and incorporating experimental techniques, and works with art, music, fashion and advertising.

The Heartland International Film Festival (HIFF) is an high academy qualifying film festival held each October in Indianapolis, Indiana, hosted by the nonprofit organization Heartland Film, Inc. The festival was first held in 1992, with the goal to "inspire filmmakers and audiences through the transformative power of film". HIFF accepts entries of feature-length films at least 40 minutes long, including student submissions. Shorter films are accepted through Heartland Films' spinoff "Indy Shorts International Film Festival", also an Academy Award qualifying festival.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Full Frame Documentary Film Festival</span> Film festival

The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is an annual international event dedicated to the theatrical exhibition of non-fiction cinema founded by Nancy Buirski, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo editor of The New York Times and documentary filmmaker.

<i>Hands on a Hardbody: The Documentary</i> 1997 American film

Hands on a Hardbody: The Documentary is a 1997 film directed by S. R. Bindler documenting an endurance competition that took place in Longview, Texas. The yearly competition pits twenty-four contestants against each other to see who can keep their hand on a pickup truck for the longest amount of time. Whoever endures the longest without leaning on the truck or squatting wins the truck. Five-minute breaks are issued every hour, and fifteen-minute breaks every six hours.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sean Baker (filmmaker)</span> American director, producer, and screenwriter

Sean Baker is an American filmmaker. He is best known for directing independent feature films about the lives of marginalized people, especially immigrants and sex workers. His films include Take Out (2004), Starlet (2012), Tangerine (2015), The Florida Project (2017), and Red Rocket (2021). He won the Palme d'Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for two Golden Globes as well as five BAFTA Awards for his work on Anora (2024). He is also known for co-creating the Fox/IFC puppet sitcom Greg the Bunny (2002–2006) and its spin-offs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Docufiction</span> Film genre

Docufiction is the cinematographic combination of documentary and fiction, this term often meaning narrative film. It is a film genre which attempts to capture reality such as it is and which simultaneously introduces unreal elements or fictional situations in narrative in order to strengthen the representation of reality using some kind of artistic expression.

SnagFilms was a website that offered advertising-supported documentary and independent films. Films were streamed on the website, which contained a library of over 5,000 films. Filmmakers could submit documentaries for consideration as well. The site included documentary films produced by National Geographic and titles such as Super Size Me, The Good Son: The Life of Ray Boom Boom Mancini, Kicking It, Cracked Not Broken and Nanking.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alma Har'el</span> Israeli-American film director

Alma Har'el is an Israeli-American music video and film director. She is best known for her 2019 feature film debut Honey Boy, for which she won a Directors Guild of America Award.

Kevin McKiernan is an American foreign correspondent, photographer and documentary filmmaker.

<i>Jeff, One Lonely Guy</i> 2012 book by Jeff Ragsdale

Jeff, One Lonely Guy is a 2012 nonfiction book by Jeff Ragsdale. It was published on March 20, 2012 by New Harvest. Dave Eggers selected the book for inclusion in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2012, and it was a GQ 2012 "Book of the Year". In 2014 Amitava Kumar included portions of Jeff, One Lonely Guy in his newly released book, A Matter of Rats: A Short Biography of Patna. Kumar previously interviewed Ragsdale and wrote about him in The New York Times.

<i>Beatles Stories</i> 2011 American film

Beatles Stories: A Fab Four Fan's Ultimate Road Trip is a 2011 film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi</span> American film director

Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi is an American documentary filmmaker. She was the director, along with her husband, Jimmy Chin, for the film Free Solo, which won the 2019 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. The film profiled Alex Honnold and his free solo climb of El Capitan in June 2017. Their first scripted film venture was Nyad, a biopic chronicling Diana Nyad's quest to be the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida.

Motto Pictures is a documentary production company based in Brooklyn, New York, specializing in producing and executive producing documentary features. Motto secures financing, builds distribution strategies, and creatively develops films, and has produced over 25 feature documentaries and won numerous awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cinema of Costa Rica</span>

The cinema of Costa Rica comprises the art of film and creative movies made within the nation of Costa Rica or by Costa Rican filmmakers abroad.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diane Paragas</span> American film and television director

Diane Paragas is a Filipino-American documentary and narrative film and commercial director. She is best known for writing, directing and producing the 2020 film Yellow Rose. Yellow Rose was Paragas' debut narrative feature. The film was selected as the Opening Night Film of the 2019 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. Yellow Rose won Grand Jury Prizes at LAAPFF, Bentonville Film Festival, CAAMFEST37, and Urbanworld where it also took the Audience Award. The film also won the Audience Award at the Hawaii International Film Festival.

Peter Mark Kendall is an American actor and musician with a career in stage, film and television. He is known for playing the role of Hans in FX's The Americans and Richard Onsted in the CBS series Strange Angel. Peter is an American actor with a family that emigrated from South Africa to Baltimore, Maryland where he was born.

Mark Kendall is an American filmmaker. He was a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow, a 2015 MacDowell Colony Fellow, and the recipient of a 2016 Pew Fellowship in the Arts.

Nicole Newnham is an American documentary film producer, writer, and director known for the Oscar-nominated movie Crip Camp (2020) which she co-directed and produced with James LeBrecht, and the multiple-Emmy-nominated film The Rape of Europa. With the Australian artist/director Lynette Wallworth, she produced the virtual reality work Collisions, which won the 2017 Emmy for Outstanding New Approaches to Documentary, and Awavena, which won the 2020 Emmy for Outstanding New Approaches to Documentary. Both Collisions and Awavena premiered simultaneously at Sundance and the World Economic Forum in Davos, and Awavena was selected for the 2018 Venice Biennale. Her most recent film, The Disappearance of Shere Hite, premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. That film also made the influential 2023 DOC NYC Awards Short List and won Special Mention for Editing, edited by Eileen Meyer.

Brian Savelson is an American writer, director, and producer who works in film, theater, and television.

References

  1. ↑ "Mark Kendall". The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. 2016-11-30. Retrieved 2019-03-22.
  2. ↑ Brennan, Matt (2013-05-29). "Now and Then: Remarkable New Doc 'La Camioneta,' a Masterful Miniature (TRAILER)". IndieWire. Retrieved 2019-03-22.
  3. ↑ Johnson, Reed (11 June 2013). "In 'La Camioneta,' Mark Kendall traces school bus' strange trip".
  4. ↑ "The Magic School Bus: 'La Camioneta' Tracks a Transformative Journey". International Documentary Association. 2013-05-14. Retrieved 2019-03-22.
  5. ↑ La Camioneta: The Journey of One American School Bus (2013) , retrieved 2019-03-22
  6. ↑ Barker, Andrew (2012-11-10). "La Camioneta: The Journey of One American School Bus". Variety. Retrieved 2019-03-22.
  7. ↑ Holden, Stephen (2013-05-30). "'Camioneta: The Journey of One American School Bus'". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2019-03-22.
  8. ↑ "La Camioneta - The Journey of One American School Bus". SXSW Schedule 2012. Retrieved 2019-03-22.
  9. ↑ "Icaro-Festival de Cine y Video en Centroamerica (2012)". IMDb. Retrieved 2019-03-22.
  10. ↑ "Guadalajara International Film Festival (2013)". IMDb. Retrieved 2019-03-22.
  11. ↑ La Camioneta: The Journey of One American School Bus , retrieved 2019-03-22
  12. ↑ La Camioneta: The Journey of One American School Bus (2013) , retrieved 2019-08-05
  13. ↑ La Camioneta: The Journey of One American School Bus , retrieved 2019-08-05
  14. ↑ Brennan, Matt (2013-05-29). "Now and Then: Remarkable New Documentary 'La Camioneta' Is a Masterful Miniature". IndieWire. Retrieved 2019-08-12.
  15. ↑ "The Magic School Bus: 'La Camioneta' Tracks a Transformative Journey". International Documentary Association. 2013-05-14. Retrieved 2019-08-12.
  16. ↑ Barker, Andrew (2012-11-10). "La Camioneta: The Journey of One American School Bus". Variety. Retrieved 2019-08-05.
  17. ↑ Holden, Stephen (2013-05-30). "Retired in America, Reborn in Guatemala". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2019-08-05.
  18. ↑ "Texts-Reviews-Blouin-Artinfo — The Official Website of Mark Kendall". markkendall.net. Retrieved 2019-08-05.
  19. ↑ Greene, Steve (2013-08-08). "The Top Documentaries on Criticwire's Best Indies of 2013 List". IndieWire. Retrieved 2019-03-22.
  20. ↑ "'Searching for Sugar Man,' Herzog's 'On Death Row' Take Top Honors at 2012 IDA Documentary Awards". International Documentary Association. 2012-12-12. Retrieved 2019-03-22.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.