The Latino Film Festival kicks off its 16th edition starting Friday with the screening of poignant “Prodigal Daughter” at The Roxie theater.
The festival is organized by Cine+Mas, an organization dedicated to the promotion of Latinx cinema in the Bay Area. This year, 44 movies, including 18 feature-length productions, will be shown.
They come from Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Cuba, as well as a selection of productions that tell the stories of Latinx communities in the United States.
Lucho Ramirez, founder of Cine+Mas, said it is important to have movies representing the experiences of Latinxs living in the United States.
“It’s not one side or the other, or it’s not being from one place or another. We’re from both places, culturally and linguistically,” said Ramirez.
The movies will screen at the Roxie Theater, KQED, Artists’ Television Access, Mission Cultural Center for the Latino Arts, La Peña Cultural Center, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and SPARK.
“The San Francisco Latino Film Festival was the cream of the crop for us, because it was close to home,” said director Victor Aquino, whose 47-minute film “The Muralists Beautiful Pain” has already earned him a place in other festivals in Seattle and San Diego.
Aquino follows the life of seven Bay Area muralists, including four — Francisco Franco, Lucia Gonzalez Ippolito, Suaro Cervantes — who reside in San Francisco.
“The San Francisco Latino Film Festival was probably the biggest one for everybody, including myself,” said Aquino. “They all asked, ‘are we going to get into the San Francisco Latino Film Festival?’.”
Aquino’s film will be shown at KQED on Oct. 22.
“It’s someplace I actually wanted to work when I was a kid, so for me it is very exciting,” he said.
Filmmaker Lazaro Gonzalez understands that feeling. A native from Cuba and a film doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley, he said that he is excited to have his movie “Parole” play at the Roxie on Oct. 13.
“It’s a beautiful opportunity to do that in the Roxie because the Roxie is within the film,” said Gonzalez. “Most of the film was shot around the Roxie because I used to live just a block away.”
In his short film, Gonzalez includes audio of his WhatsApp conversations with his mother in Cuba, the only communication they’ve had since he last saw her five years ago. She urges him to listen to the sounds of the place he left while he tries to deal with the stress of bills and the fate of legislation that allowed many Cubans like him to come to this country.
“Even though it’s addressing the specific experience of a Cuban person waiting for the answer of a humanitarian parole, this policy is not only for Cuba, but also for Haitians, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans,” said Gonzalez. “It’s something that integrates a broader Latinx community living in the United States and I think this is the dialog that I want to create.”
The Latino Film Festival starts Friday Oct. 11 and it runs through Nov. 3 with in-person and virtual screenings. Tickets are available here.
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