KINGSTON, R.I. – September 28, 2010 – Filmmaker Natalia Almada is the Italo Scanga visiting artist at the University of Rhode Island Kingston campus this fall. She will give screenings of All Water has a Perfect Memory and el General Oct. 6 at 4:45 p.m. in Swan Hall, Room 304, 60 Upper College Rd., Kingston.
The issues her dual Mexican and American citizenships and bicultural upbringing inform All Water, about the drowning of her 2-year-old sister when Natalia was an infant. Her film, Al Otro Lado, invites the audience to examine immigration and drug trafficking as choices driven by desperate economic situations rather than only political talking points.
Almada is owner of Altamura Films, an independent documentary film production company, and a freelance documentary film editor. She has been a Fellow of the New York Foundation for the Arts and of the MacDowell Colony. The Guggenheim Foundation, Creative Capital and the Sundance Institute have supported her work. She lives and works in both Mexico City and Brooklyn, New York.
Almada’s visit and the screenings of her movies are supported by funds from the Italo Scanga Foundation and the URI Department of Art & Art History in conjunction with generous funding from the College of Arts and Sciences and the URI Film Media program.
Italo Scanga was an accomplished artist who taught at a number of Universities including the University of Rhode Island, Brown, RISD and the University of California, San Diego. His work was included in the 1983 Whitney Biennial. He won numerous awards including two National Endowment for the Arts Grants and his work is in a number of prestigious collections including the Fogg Museum, Guggenhiem Museum, MOMA and the RISD Museum. The Foundation’s support of the visiting artist series reflects his commitment to the arts in education.
For more information on the Italo Scanga Visiting Artist Program contact Professor Annu Palakunnathu Matthew at 18percent@uri.edu. To receive emails about future presentations at the URI Art & Art History Department, email 18percent@uri.edu.