Between Borders and Voices: The Cinema of Bernardo Ruiz" Comes to New York This November
- Tammy Reese
- 4 minutes ago
- 8 min read
By Tammy Reese
Color Congress and Cinema Tropical Present “Between Borders and Voices: The Cinema of Bernardo Ruiz”The First-Ever Retrospective of the Three-Time Emmy-Nominated Documentarian
A Multi-Venue Celebration in New York City, November 2025 at Museum of the Moving Image, DCTV’s Firehouse Cinema, CUNY Graduate Center, Maysles Documentary Center,snd Espacio de Culturas at New York University
Color Congress, through its Elev8Docs Marketing Initiative, and Cinema Tropical are proud to present “Between Borders and Voices: The Cinema of Bernardo Ruiz,” the first-ever retrospective of the three-time Emmy-nominated Mexican-American filmmaker.
Programmed by Carlos A. Gutiérrez, this multi-venue celebration of five feature films — each followed by in-person Q&A sessions with the filmmaker and special guests — will take place at the Museum of the Moving Image, the Firehouse Cinema at DCTV, the CUNY Graduate Center, the Maysles Documentary Center, and New York University’s Espacio de Culturas throughout November 2025.
Born in Guanajuato, Mexico, and raised in Brooklyn, Ruiz’s bicultural upbringing shaped his acute sensitivity to the intersections of identity, migration, and belonging. His films, characterized by investigative rigor and lyrical restraint, bear witness to histories often erased from mainstream accounts, grounding political critique in lived experience and everyday resilience.
For almost two decades, Ruiz has pursued a clear, unflinching mission: to craft rigorous, socially engaged documentaries that amplify voices too often pushed to the margins. His films illuminate the lives of journalists, farmworkers, migrants, Indigenous runners, and human rights advocates — figures who rarely occupy the center of media narratives, yet whose stories reveal urgent truths about power, violence, and resilience.
Unlike many of his peers who pursued commercial markets or the prestige of the festival circuit, Ruiz chose to work within the often-precarious sphere of public television. Defying the odds, he embraced a medium long dedicated to civic education and community exchange. For him, public media is not merely a vehicle for distribution but a political stance — a commitment to accessibility and plurality at a moment when mainstream outlets were turning away from nuanced coverage of Latin America and its diasporas.
The five films in the retrospective chart the filmmaker’s evolution as one of the most significant nonfiction voices of his generation — an artist who bridges investigative journalism and cinematic poetics, and whose commitment to public media has expanded the possibilities of documentary practice.
The retrospective kicks off on Saturday, November 1, at Museum of the Moving Image with El Equipo (2023), Ruiz’s most recent feature, which tells the remarkable story of an American forensic doctor and a group of Argentine students whose pioneering work in the 1980s helped expose crimes of state terror and redefine the global pursuit of human rights. A reception will follow the screening.
The series continues at DCTV’s Firehouse Cinema with Reportero (2012), Ruiz’s breakout film about Mexican journalists who risk their lives to publish the truth amid unrelenting violence. The CUNY Graduate Center will host a screening of The Infinite Race (2020), on the Rarámuri Indigenous runners of northern Mexico, reframing their legendary endurance not as folklore but as a story of cultural resistance and survival.
The Maysles Documentary Center in Harlem will present Harvest Season (2018), an intimate chronicle of the Latinx farmworkers who sustain California’s wine industry. The retrospective will conclude at NYU’s Espacio de Culturas with Kingdom of Shadows (2015), which expands Ruiz’s inquiry into the human toll of the drug war, weaving together the testimonies of a nun, a former trafficker, and a U.S. federal agent whose lives intersect in the shadow of systemic violence.
Additionally, UnionDocs will host a conversation with Ruiz on Saturda
y, November 22, in which the filmmaker will discuss his practice, the collapse of traditional production models, and present an exclusive preview of his new film project, The Low Season, a hybrid film about a woman from the future who helps migrant families in contemporary Queens.
“Ruiz’s films envision futures in which marginalized communities are not simply observed but heard, understood, and honored,” said Gutiérrez, programmer of the retrospective and executive director of Cinema Tropical. “Through his films, we see how history is written from the margins, and how acts of witness can become acts of imagination.”
This mid-career retrospective affirms that documentaries can be both elegant and consequential, honoring artistic vision, investigative rigor, and civic commitment. As the spaces for independent and public-interest media continue to contract, “Between Borders and Voices: The Cinema of Bernardo Ruiz” offers a timely reminder of the power of documentary to illuminate, unsettle, and inspire.
“Between Borders and Voices: The Cinema of Bernardo Ruiz” is presented by Color Congress, through its Elev8Docs Marketing Initiative, and Cinema Tropical. Hosting venues are Museum of the Moving Image, the Firehouse Cinema at DCTV, the CUNY Graduate Center, the Maysles Documentary Center, and Espacio de Culturas at NYU. Community partners are CUNY Mexican Studies Institute, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University, and the Bronx Documentary Center.
For more information, screeners for review, or to schedulean interview with the filmmaker, please contact Samuel Didonato,Cinema Tropical, press@cinematropical.com or (212) 254–5474.
About the Filmmaker:
Bernardo Ruiz is Mexican-American writer and filmmaker based in Queens, NY. Born to Mexican and American parents in Guanajuato, Mexico, Ruiz came to the U.S. at age 6, growing up in Brooklyn, New York during the heyday of VHS movie rentals. For two and a half decades he has worked in documentary film, garnering three News & Documentary Emmy nominations for his films. Ruiz frequently serves as a mentor to emerging makers and has recently worked with Firelight Media, DCTV and the the Future of Science Fellowship to support new documentary makers. In the fall of 2015, Ruiz was a filmmaker-in-residence at the Investigative Reporting Program (IRP) at the U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. In 2024, he was a Documentary Film Fellow at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, working on an oral history about independent filmmakers and public media. Ruiz is currently at work on The Low Season, a hybrid fiction-documentary feature set in Queens, NY.
Film Schedule & Descriptions:
El Equipo
(Bernardo Ruiz, USA, 2023, 80 min. In Spanish and English with English subtitles)Working with a trove of archival materials spanning four decades and unfolding as part procedural, part true crime thriller, El Equipo chronicles the history-making collaboration between Dr. Clyde Snow, a legendary forensic scientist originally from Texas, and a group of Argentine university students, who were dubbed “unlikely forensic sleuths” by The New York Times. With an unprecedented access to the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team and its archives, the fifth feature film by director Bernardo Ruiz offers a welcome twist to the traditional true crime film by focusing on systemic political and human rights abuses rather than on one-off tales of murder or lone serial killers, and deftly creates a direct link between state atrocities from the past and present.
Saturday, November 1, 6:30pm at Museum of the Moving Image
Reportero
(Bernardo Ruiz, USA/Mexico, 2012, 72 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)Bernardo Ruiz’s acclaimed debut feature Reportero follows veteran reporter Sergio Haro and his colleagues at Semanario Zeta, a Tijuana-based muckraking weekly, as they persist in their work in one of the deadliest places in the world for journalists. Since the paper’s founding in 1980, two editors have been murdered and the founder viciously attacked. Former editor Francisco Ortiz was gunned down just after buckling his two children into the back seat of his car, killed for printing the names and faces of drug traffickers who had long operated with impunity. Gripping and timely, Reportero confronts the violence, corruption, and power struggles along the border. As the drug war intensifies and the threats to journalists grow, the film asks a pressing question: will the free press be silenced?
Wednesday, November 5, 7pm at Firehouse: DCTV’s Cinema for Documentary Film
The Infinite Race
(Bernardo Ruiz, USA/Mexico, 2020, 70 min. In Spanish and English with English subtitles)The Infinite Race follows an annual marathon in Mexico’s Copper Canyon, where the indigenous Rarámuri — renowned for their endurance — compete in a grueling long-distance race. Founded in 2004, the event honors Rarámuri traditions and supports the community, including essential corn vouchers. With stunning cinematography and intimate access to the runners, the film explores tensions beneath the race: cultural appropriation, economic pressures, and the threat of drug cartels. When violence threatens the next race, the complexities of the organizers and the global spotlight come into focus. Amid these challenges, the film offers a vivid portrait of a resilient people whose connection to land and tradition endures — race or no race, the Rarámuri continue to run.
Monday, November 10 at CUNY Graduate Center
Harvest Season
(Bernardo Ruiz, USA, 2018, 83 min. In Spanish and English with English subtitles)Harvest Season delves into the lives of the people who make California’s premium wine possible, following Mexican-American winemakers and migrant workers whose labor is essential yet often overlooked. Set against one of the most dramatic grape harvests in recent memory, the film immerses viewers in the rhythms and challenges of the Napa and Sonoma Valleys, where wildfires, a growing labor shortage, shifting immigration policies, and climate change threaten livelihoods. Through the stories of three individuals deeply rooted in the craft, director Bernardo Ruiz captures the intimacy, dedication, and resilience behind every vine and vintage, offering a lush and immersive portrait of an industry — and the people — at the heart of it.
Friday, November 21 at the Maysles Documentary Center
Kingdom of Shadows
(Bernardo Ruiz, USA, 2015, 75 min. In Spanish and English with English subtitles)Bernardo Ruiz takes an unflinching look at the hard choices and destructive consequences of the U.S.-Mexico drug war, weaving together the stories of a U.S. drug enforcement agent on the border, an activist nun in violence- scarred Monterrey, Mexico, and a former Texas smuggler, to reveal the human side of an often misunderstood conflict that has resulted in a growing human-rights crisis that only recently has made international headlines.
Monday, November 24 at Espacio de Culturas at New York University
A Conversation With Director Bernardo Ruiz Plus an Advance Look at The Low Season
With over two decades in independent film, Ruiz will reflect on the collapse of traditional funding, the rise of the creator economy, and the challenges of making meaningful work outside legacy systems. Through film clips and personal insights, he’ll share his “imperfect strategy” for navigating today’s media landscape. The evening includes a sneak peek at Ruiz’s newest project, The Low Season — a hybrid fiction-documentary about a woman from the future who helps immigrant families in present-day Queens. Blending participatory storytelling and speculative fiction, the film opens up bold new possibilities for socially engaged cinema. Join us for this timely and thought-provoking conversation — and be among the first to experience Ruiz’s daring new work in progress.
Saturday, November 22, 7pm at UnionDocs
For more information visit:https://www.colorcongressinitiative.org/bernardo-ruiz-retrospective
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