ZYZZYVA Movie Night with Ingrid Rojas Contreras: Aventurera

Co-presented with Litquake, San Francisco’s literary festival (October 9-25).

For the last ZYZZYVA Movie Night of the year, Ingrid Rojas Contreras presents a special screening of Aventurera (Adventuress), widely considered the greatest film in Mexico’s singular rumbera genre, introduced by award-winning author Daniel Handler (a.k.a. Lemony Snicket). Aventurera is a pitch-black film noir punctuated by Afro-Caribbean musical numbers, starring dancer-singer Ninón Sevilla as a proper young lady who, within ten minutes, witnesses a parent’s suicide, is sold into prostitution, and transformed into a nightclub sensation. Through these hairpin turns, director Alberto Gout re-writes the rules of female portrayal in Mexican cinema through a razor-sharp indictment of bourgeois society. Co-hosted by ZYZZYVA editor Oscar Villalon. Doors at 5:30pm for book sales/signing. 

Following the screening, there will be a holiday party next door at 518 Valencia, starting at 8:00pm. Please note: the holiday party is separately ticketed — attendees will need to purchase party tickets in addition to film screening tickets.