Elijah Ritch - The Daily Lobo

Culture

Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Sonia Nazario speaks at Albuquerque Museum

Emmett Di Mauro and Elijah Ritch | March 24

On March 14, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sonia Nazario gave an author talk and signing for her book “Enrique’s Journey” at the Albuquerque Museum. Her talk was framed by recent cuts on museum funding, and celebrations of cultural diversity. “Not a lot of museums take on these topics, so congratulations to the Albuquerque Museum,” Nazario said. Nazario’s writing focuses on several of America’s “most intractable problems,” including hunger, drug addiction and immigration, according to her website.

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REVIEW: Lady Gaga returns to her roots on new album ‘MAYHEM’

Elijah Ritch | March 10

On Friday, March 7, Lady Gaga released her seventh studio album “MAYHEM.” The record has been touted as a return to the eccentric, dark-pop sounds of her early work after a decade of experimentation with various other genres, including jazz and country. The album’s lead single “Disease” is a boisterous track with influences from industrial music and EDM. In both its content and mood, the song is reminiscent of Gaga’s 2009 project “The Fame Monster,” with lyrics about healing a wounded lover and a dark, passionate eroticism. Thanks to its frenetic production and Gaga’s unabashed confidence, “Disease” is easily her best lead single since “Born This Way.”

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REVIEW: ‘Hard Truths’ showcases the simultaneous terror and beauty of the modern world

Elijah Ritch | March 5

From Feb. 21-24, Albuquerque’s Guild Cinema showed British director Mike Leigh’s new film “Hard Truths.” The film centers around Pansy, played by Marianne Jean-Baptiste, a middle-aged woman living with unnamed chronic illnesses and grappling with severe agoraphobia. She frequently lashes out ...

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Guild Cinema March preview

Elijah Ritch | March 3

Here are just a few of the hidden gems screening at Albuquerque’s Guild Cinema in March. From March 7-10, the Guild will screen the new Norwegian film “Armand.” The directorial debut of Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel, the film is about a famous actress who must contend with her young son’s behavior at school. “Armand” won the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2024, which is the festival’s award for best feature-film debut. It stars Renate Reinsve, whose breakthrough performance in the 2021 film “The Worst Person in the World” earned her the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress. Reinsve’s sensitive and commanding acting style is again garnering her acclaim, with IndieWire deeming it her best performance yet.

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REVIEW: FKA twigs transcends genre conventions with ‘EUSEXUA’

Elijah Ritch | March 2

On Jan. 24, British musician FKA twigs released her third studio album “EUSEXUA.” FKA twigs, aka Tahliah Barnett, is a genre-bending, visionary artist whose work frequently combines electronic music, art pop, R&B and avant-garde styles. She is frequently likened to artists such as Kate Bush and Björk due to her sonic innovation and eccentric visual aesthetic. While there are certainly similarities between them, FKA twigs’ music is like a world of its own — one that is impossible to categorize or compare.

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REVIEW: Oscar-nominated live-action short films fail to deliver

Elijah Ritch | February 24

On Feb. 19-20, Albuquerque’s Guild Cinema showed the five short films nominated for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film at the 97th Academy Awards. A diverse array of films are nominated in 2025. Out of the five nominees, only one film is primarily in English. The Croatian film “The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent” is a dramatized account of the Štrpci massacre — the abduction from a train and subsequent murder of 18 Bosniak Muslims and one Croat by members of the Serbian military at the height of the Bosnian War. The film focuses on Tomo Buzov, a retired Yugoslav military captain and the one Croat victim of the massacre, who spoke up in defense of the train’s Bosniak passengers.

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UNM visiting artist Larry Madrigal gives talk at Albuquerque Museum

Emmett Di Mauro and Elijah Ritch | February 24

On Thursday, Feb. 20, the Albuquerque Museum hosted painter Larry Madrigal to talk about his work as part of the University of New Mexico Frederick Hammersley Visiting Artist program. After the talk, Madrigal hosted a Q&A session with audience members. “The program invites prominent contemporary painters from around the world to come live and work in Albuquerque,” according to the UNM Department of Art website. Madrigal is from Phoenix. His first solo show was in Los Angeles in 2020, he said, and he has since had shows in Paris, New York and Bucharest.

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Love in the Archives highlights the Center for Southwest Research’s vast collections

Elijah Ritch | February 17

On Thursday, Feb. 13, the Center for Southwest Research & Special Collections hosted the sixth annual Love in the Archives event at the Frank Waters Room in Zimmerman Library. This year, the theme was “Then and Now.” Portia Vescio, the university archivist at the CSWR, co-organizes Love in the Archives. The theme explored the progression of time, she said. One of the collections on display was a group of archival materials related to the life and work of American artist Wilson Hurley. The renowned landscape painter frequently depicted the grand vistas of the Southwest in his work.

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REVIEW: New documentary ‘Dahomey’ shines a light on the impact of colonialism in Africa

Elijah Ritch | February 10

From Feb. 7-10, Albuquerque’s Guild Cinema screened the new documentary “Dahomey.” Directed by French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop, the film follows the journey of a group of artifacts as they are returned from a French museum to their place of origin — the Republic of Benin in West Africa, where the area comprising the former Kingdom of Dahomey is located. The Kingdom of Dahomey was under French colonial rule from 1894-1960, according to Black History Month 2025. It was during this period that the artifacts in question were looted from Dahomey and taken to France. Prior to their repatriation to Benin, the pieces were on display at the Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris.

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Candelaria Nature Preserve celebrates four years of restoration

Emmett Di Mauro and Elijah Ritch | February 7

On Jan. 31, the Candelaria Nature Preserve in Albuquerque hosted a tour of its ongoing rewilding project. The public tours are given on the last Friday of every month from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and cover the preserve’s efforts to restore the 90 acres of former farmland in the North Valley, according to the Ciudad Soil & Water Conservation District website. Partnering with the City of Albuquerque Open Space Division, the Ciudad Soil & Water Conservation District provides an annual report on some goals for the Candelaria Nature Preserve, including plans for soil health. The project is in the fourth year of its 20-year span. The 2023 report can be found on its website.