26th Chicago Latino Film Festival Highlights Local, Global Latino Culture

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CHICAGO – Just two weeks after the European Union Film Festival concluded at the Gene Siskel Film Center, another excellent international showcase of world cinema began in the Windy City. The 26th Chicago Latino Film Festival screens over 120 films during its two-week run, highlighting Latino filmmakers and cultures from Latin America, Portugal, Spain and the United States.

The festival is presented by the International Latino Cultural Center, in cooperation with Columbia College Chicago, and runs from Friday, April 16th to Thursday, April 29th. It kicked off last Friday with an Opening Night Gala in the form of a Mexican fiesta, commemorating Mexico’s Bicentennial Independence and Centennial Revolution Anniversary. “Round Trip,” the winner at last year’s Guadalajara Mexican Film Festival, was screened, and its director, Gerardo Tort, was in attendance. Yet there are plenty more first-class festival events in store for moviegoers during this upcoming week.

On Friday, April 23rd, the Tourist Office of Spain is sponsoring the festival’s next anticipated event evening, “A Night of Spain,” featuring a cocktail reception, live entertainment, and a screening of the thriller “A Good Man,” from acclaimed Spanish filmmaker Juan Martínez Moreno (who will be in attendance). And on the following Wednesday, April 28th, the recipient of this year’s Cinelatino Audience Choice Award will be announced at the Brazilian Night awards ceremony, sponsored by the Government of Brazil through the Consulate General of Brazil in Chicago. Francisco J. Lombardi, the prolific Peruvian filmmaker of such films as “Ojos que no ven” and “Pantaleón y las visitadoras,” will be presented with this year’s Gloria Award. The night culminates with a screening of Brazilian filmmaker José Joffily’s “Blue Eyes,” starring David Rasche (“In the Loop”), followed by a reception at Texas de Brazil.

Sabrina Garciarena and Gonzalo Heredia play young lovers in director María Teresa Constantini’s Felicitas, which screens as part of the 26th Chicago Latino Film Festival.
Photo credit: Costa Films

Over twenty of the festival’s selections are directed by women, including Argentina’s romantic period piece “Felicitas,” from filmmaker María Teresa Constantini. The film has various elements of classic Hollywood melodrama, with two young lovers in Buenos Aires (circa 1862) finding themselves torn apart by war and tradition. It features a standout performance by Sabrina Garciarena as the titular heroine, who transforms from an innocent teenager to a world-weary adult before our eyes. “Felicitas” screens on Friday the 23rd and Sunday the 25th. Other notable works from female filmmakers include Spain’s “She is the Matador,” which won the All Access Creative Promise Award for Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival, and Mexico’s award-winning drama, “Nora’s Will.” You can catch “Matador” on Saturday the 24th or Wednesday the 28th, and “Will” on Sunday the 25th or Tuesday the 27th.

There are also several LGBT films showcased at this year’s festival, including Peru’s “Undertow,” which claimed the World Cinema Audience Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The film, directed by Javier Fuentes-León, centers on a closeted man attempting to start a family with his wife, while secretly continuing an affair with his ostracized boyfriend. “Undertow” screens on the 27th and 29th. Another notable gem worth catching at the festival this week is Argentina’s “La Tigra,” an intimate character study centering on a man who returns to his hometown while searching for his father. Directors Federico Godfrid and Juan Sasiaín took home the FIPRESCI Prize at the 2008 Mar del Plata Film Festival. See it on Saturday the 24th or Monday the 26th.

Local Latino moviegoers may be especially interested in the festival’s variety of pictures made right here in Chicago. Esau Meléndez’s “Immigrant Nation!: The Battle for the Dream” documents the work of a modern social activist involved in the 2006 protest against Bill HR4437. Meléndez explores the recent movement for immigration reform, while also telling the story of a woman who resorted to civic disobedience in order to make her voice be heard. “Immigrant Nation” screens alongside Ricardo Gamboa’s short, “The Southside Has Many Beauty Queens” on the 23rd and 28th. Playing in another double feature is “Six Weeks of Change,” in which filmmakers Andrés Lombana and María Elena Ponticiello follow ordinary citizens as they publicly offer ways to fix the Chicago Public School system’s overcrowding problem. Also on the double bill is Bolivian documentarian Maya Jensen’s “Solidarity in Saya,” which investigates the Afro-Bolivian musical genre. “Six Weeks” and “Saya” screen together on the 24th.

As the children of immigrants, twenty-five Chicagoans talk about issues of identity and culture in Gizella Meneses’s short documentary “Second Generation Stories: Growing Up Latino in Chicago.” This film screens alongside Ricardo A. Martinez’s documentary, “The Wall,” about the U.S. government’s construction of a fence along the Mexican border. Catch this double feature on the 25th or 27th. After winning the Audience Choice Award at the 2006 Chicago Latino Film Festival, director Juan Daniel Zavaleta is back with his second feature-length effort, the crime thriller “Death Do Us Part,” which screens on the 29th. Also closing the festival that day is the Chicago premiere of Peter Bratt’s “La Mission,” starring the director’s well-known brother, Benjamin.

By MATT FAGERHOLM Staff Writer HollywoodChicago.com matt@hollywoodchicago.com