2011 LATIN AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL
Organized by the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS)
September 23-29, 2011
Art Theater, 126 W. Church St., Champaign, IL
También la Lluvia/Even the Rain
FRI Set 23, 6:00 pm / SUN Set 25, 8:40 pm / THU Set 29, 6:00 pm
También la Lluvia sets up an intriguing dialogue about Spanish imperialism through incidents taking place some 500 years apart, while examining the personal belief systems of the members of a film crew headed by director Sebastian (Gael Garcia Bernal) and his producer Costa (Luis Tosar) who arrive in Bolivia to make a revisionist film about the conquest of Latin America. Set in February and March of 2000 when real-life protests against the privatization of water rocked the nation, the film reflexively blurs the line between fiction and reality in what Variety calls “a powerful, richly layered indictment of the plight of Latin America’s dispossessed.” Carlos Aduviri is dynamic as a local who is cast as a 15th century native in the film, but when the make-up and loin cloth come off, he sails into action protesting his community’s deprivation of water at the hands of the government.
Contracorriente/Undertow
SAT Set 24, 7:00 pm / MON Set 26, 6:40 pm / WED Set 28, 8:15 pm
Miguel is a handsome, young and beloved fisherman in Cabo Blanco, a small fishing village in the Northern coast of Peru, where the community has deep-rooted religious traditions. Miguel is married to the beautiful Mariela, who is 7-months pregnant with their firstborn, but Miguel harbors a scandalous secret: He is having a love affair with another man, Santiago, a painter who is ostracized by the townsfolk for being agnostic and open about his sexuality. When Santiago drowns accidentally in the ocean’s strong undertow, he cannot pass peacefully to the other side. He returns after his death to ask Miguel to look for his body and bury it according to the rituals of the town. Miguel must choose between sentencing Santiago to eternal torment or doing right by him and, in turn, revealing their relationship to Mariela and the entire village. Miguel is forced to deal with the consequences of his acts and to come to terms with who he really is, even if by doing so he stands the chance of losing the people he loves the most.
Divã/In Therapy
SAT Set 24, 5:00 pm / TUE Set 27, 8:40 pm / THU Set 29, 8:15 pm
In Therapy tells the story of Mercedes, a forty-some year old woman that is dealing with the pleasures and challenges of modern life. Married and mother of two, Mercedes decides, without being quite sure why, that she’ll start visiting a therapist. And what started as curiosity becomes a devastating experience leading to a series of changes to her daily life. On the psychiatrist couch Mercedes questions her marriage, professional life and her allure. Her best friend, Monica, who has been by her side throughout her life accompanies Mercedes’ transformation and partakes on her new experiences and discoveries, not necessarily agreeing with all of her choices.
Dos Hermanos/Brother and Sister
SAT Set 24, 9:10 pm / MON Set 26, 8:15 pm / WED Set 28, 6:00 pm
They are both alone. They need each other but, at the same time, they despise each other. Siblings Marcos and Susana are unable to heal the old wounds festering within them after the death of their mother. When Susana sells their mother’s flat, she deprives her brother of the home where he had cared for their mother his whole life. Marcos’s need to start living again surfaces when his sister forces him to leave Buenos Aires for Uruguay.
El Traspatio/Backyard
FRI Set 23, 8:15 pm / SUN Set 25, 6:00 pm / TUE Set 27, 6:00 pm
An astonishing fictional account of the unending series of murders of young women in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, which began in 1996. Most of the victims are low-paid laborers who have been drawn to the town by the possibility of work at American-owned factories. In the film Mexican police officer Blanca Bravo is sent to Ciudad Juarez to investigate and comes to learn realities of these women’s lives, as well as the truth about a police force and local power structure embodied by entrepreneur Mickey Santos that has ceased to care.
Mistura/The Power of Food
In Peru, cooking and eating go beyond the kitchen. The nation’s passion for food transcend spots and pans, Peru finds in its cuisine its missing ingredient: A way to celebrate being Peruvian. A way to love, show respect and be proud. Mistura, the gastronomic fair that happens in Lima every September, is the best example. This project is an attempt to capture a slice of the immense spectrum of experiences that are simmered in Mistura every year.A place where cooks and patrons