The University of Central Florida is pleased to announce the 4th Latin American / Latinx Film Festival to be held between October 5 – October 27, 2024. Times and locations of the films will vary so please check each film for more details.
Admission is free for all the films and post-film discussions.
If interested in attending, please RSVP
The Latin American/Latinx Film Festival is made possible with the support of The 2024 Latin American/Latinx Film Festival is made possible with the support of Pradga, SPAIN Arts & Culture and the Secretary of State for Culture of Spain, and by the generous funding and sponsorship of the University of Central Florida’s College of Sciences, School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs, the Nicholson School of Communication and Media, and the Women’s and Gender Studies Program.
Film Festival Coordinators:
Annabelle Conroy, School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs (Annabelle.Conroy@ucf.edu)
Esmeralda Duarte, Department of Modern Languages and Literature (Esmeralda.Duarte@ucf.edu)
WHEN: October 5 – October 27, 2024
TIME & LOCATION: Times and locations vary by film, so please check each film for more details. Films will also be available on-demand on a virtual platform for one week after the in-person screening. Click the RSVP button to register and get access to the films.
COST: Admission is free
PARKING
Main Campus: UCF parking is free during the weekends. Please park in any “D” parking lots and garages. “D” parking areas are denoted with GREEN signs. Visit https://parking.ucf.edu/maps/ for a listing of parking areas.
The Companion (El ACOMPAÑANTE)
Pavel Giroud / Cuba / 2016 / 104 min
Date: October 5, 2024
Time: 5:30 PM-7:30 PM
Location: UCF Main Campus / Nicholson COM 101
View on the Virtual Platform: One week streaming from 10/6/24 to 10/20/24
SYNOPSIS
Spanish with English subtitles
With Yotuel Romero, Armando Miguel Gómez, Camila Arteche, Yailene Sierra, Jazz Vilá, Jorge Molina
CUBA’S OFFICIAL ENTRY TO THE ACADEMY AWARDS®
Set in 1988 Cuba as the government dispatched HIV patients to AIDS centers under military rule, The Companion narrates the unlikely friendship between a boxing champion and a conflictive patient.
After failing a doping test, Horacio Romero has no other choice but to serve a sentence. His fate is in Los Cocos, a sanatorium under military rule where HIV patients are compulsorily confined, with the exception of a weekly pass to visit their families under the supervision of personal wardens called “companions.”
As a “companion,” Horacio is supposed to keep an eye on Daniel -the most conflictive patient in the ward- and get him to comply to the regulations. Their interests immediately collide as Daniel is set to spend his last days in freedom and is ready to do anything to make this happen.
Horacio, on the other hand, dreams about boxing again to get his champion’s status back. For that to happen, however, he must first win this battle out of the ring…
The Facilitator (El FACILITADOR)
Victor Arregui / Chile, Ecuador, United States / 2014 / 83 min
Date: Sunday, October 6, 2024
Time: 3:00 PM- 4:30 PM
Location: UCF Main Campus / Nicholson COM 145
View on the Virtual Platform: One week streaming from 10/7/24 to 10/21/24
SYNOPSIS
Spanish with English subtitles
With Francisco Febres Cordero, María Gracia Omegna, Juan Carlos Terán, Marco Bustos
A political thriller about human rights, The Facilitator is one of the most successful films to come out of Ecuador in the last few years. When Miguel, a successful businessman, learns he is ill, he asks his estranged daughter Elena to come back to Ecuador. She agrees, but maintains a cold and distant relationship with him, opting to spend most of her time with friends using drugs and alcohol. After a close call with the law, Miguel sends her to spend some time with her grandfather at the family’s estate.
In this nostalgic house that bring up so many memories and nightmares, Elena meets her childhood friend Galo, who now promotes water access rights for the indigenous community. Elena is compelled by their way of life and gets involved with the political organization of the community.
When her nightmares intensify, Elena starts digging behind the reports of the car accident that supposedly killed her mother. Elena will gradually understand that among family secrets, crimes, corruption, and dark perversions, commitment and beauty can emerge.
CHINESE TAKE-AWAY (UN CUENTO CHINO)
Sebastián Borensztein / Argentina / 2012 / 98 min
In person screening cancelled
Date: Sunday, October 13, 2024
Time: 3:00 PM- 4:40 PM
Location: UCF Main Campus / Nicholson COM 145
View on the Virtual Platform: One week streaming from 10/14/24 to 10/21/24
SYNOPSIS
Spanish with English subtitles
With Ricardo Darín, Ignacio Huang, Muriel Santa Ana
Argentina’s national treasure, Ricardo Darín, is best known for his intense dramatic performances in films such as Nine Queens, The Aura, and the Oscar-winning The Secret in Their Eyes, but his brilliant comic timing in this instant classic helped make Chinese Take-Away the biggest home-grown box office success of 2011 in Argentina. Darín plays Roberto, a gruff, anti-social loner who lords over his tiny hardware shop in Buenos Aires with a meticulous sense of control and routine, barely allowing for the slightest of customer foibles. After a chance encounter with Jun, a Chinese man who has arrived in Argentina looking for his only living relative, Roberto takes him in. Their unusual cohabitation helps Roberto bring an end to his loneliness, but not without revealing to the impassive Jun that destiny’s intersections are many and can even explain the film’s surreal opening sequence: a brindled cow falling from the sky.
IXCANUL, VOLCANO (IXCANUL, VOLCÁN)
Jayro Bustamante / France, Guatemala / 2015 / 62 min
Date: Saturday, October 19, 2024
Time: 5:30 PM- 6:40 PM
Location: UCF Main Campus / Nicholson COM 101
View on the Virtual Platform: One week streaming from 10/20/24 to 10/27/24
SYNOPSIS
In Kaqchikel and Spanish with English subtitles
With María Mercedes Coroy, María Telón, Manuel Antún, Justo Lorenzo, Marvin Coroy
GUATEMALA’S OFFICIAL ENTRY TO THE ACADEMY AWARDS®
The brilliant debut by Guatemalan filmmaker Jayro Bustamante is a mesmerizing fusion of fact and fable, a dreamlike depiction of the daily lives of Kaqchikel speaking Mayans on a coffee plantation at the base of an active volcano. Immersing us in its characters’ customs and beliefs, Ixcanul chronicles with unblinking realism, a disappearing tradition and a disappearing people.
Maria, a 17-year-old Mayan girl, lives and works with her parents on a coffee plantation in the foothills of an active volcano in Guatemala.
An arranged marriage awaits her: her parents have promised her to Ignacio, the plantation overseer. But Maria doesn’t sit back and accept her destiny.
Pepe, a young coffee cutter who plans to migrate to the USA becomes her possible way out. Maria seduces Pepe in order to run away with him, but after promises and clandestine meetings, Pepe takes off, leaving her pregnant, alone and in disgrace. There’s no time to lose for Maria’s mother, who thinks abortion is the only solution. Yet despite her mother’s ancestral knowledge, the baby remains, “destined to live.”
But destiny has more in store for Maria: a snakebite forces them to leave immediately in search of a hospital. The modern world Maria has so dreamt about will save her life, but at what price…
Sun and Daughter (Cuidando Al Sol)
Catalina Razzini / Bolivia, Spain, Germany / 2022 / 84 min
Date: Sunday, October 20, 2024
Time: 3:00 PM- 4:30 PM
Location: UCF Main Campus / Nicholson COM 145
View on the Virtual Platform: One week streaming from 10/21/24 to 10/28/24
SYNOPSIS
Spanish, Aymara, with English subtitles
With María Belén Callisaya, Karina Paco, Luis Aduviri
Why you must-see this film. Because it is a feel-good debut film by Bolivian director Catalina Razzini, an incredible new talent to watch. It is a sensitive and beautifully crafted depiction in the purest John Ford style of the spectacular landscape of the Island of the Sun, captured through the lens of Spanish cinematographer Santiago Racaj ‘Summer 1993’. And because it has five stars on IMDb!
Ten-year-old Lucía’s family lives in the Island of the Sun (Isla del Sol) in the middle of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia; a place that’s as mystical as it is picturesque. When her father breaks from their routine one morning and leaves for the city to make money, Lucía finds it difficult to cope with his absence, building her daily life around the expectations of their reunion.
After school, Lucía and her younger sister Maribel weave Totora reeds into figurines that her mother sells to numerous tourists. But the rhythm of life on the island and the passage of time help her realize her father is no longer the person she longed to have back. She must find her own path. Lucía is thinking of going to the city herself, but she has no money. It’s time she took her destiny into her own hands.
With a subtle commentary on environmental tourism and the exploitation of “the other” that goes two-way, Catalina Razzini’s touching rural tale masterly captures the landscape of Isla del Sol.
Without Prescription (Receta No Incluida)
Juliana Maité / Puerto Rico / 2022 / 83 min
No in-person screening
View on the Virtual Platform: One week streaming from 10/27/24 to 11/02/24
SYNOPSIS
Spanish with English subtitles
With Marietere Vélez, Mario A. Morales, Ángel Manuel
Why you must see this film. Because it is an achievement for Puerto Rican cinema. It provokes a heated and productive conversation about mental health and health insurance systems. With a good pace and a compelling script, it is a film that we highly recommend!
Olivia is getting ready for her family’s Christmas Eve party. But her obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) voice in her head, which has been under control for some time, suddenly returns, prompting a desperate search for the pills that have helped her in the past.
The lack of health insurance forces Olivia to reach out to her friend Jessica – whom she met years ago in a mental institution. Jessica introduces her to David, the town’s pharmacist’s son, who agrees to sell her the pills.
Trapped inside David’s apartment by a rainstorm, the two strangers start uncovering truths about each other and begin a healing process that doesn’t necessarily involve pills.
I Owe You a Letter About Brazil (Fico Te Devendo Uma Carta Sobre O Brasil)
Carol Benjamin / Brazil / 2019 / 90 min
Date: Sunday, October 27, 2024
Time: 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM
Location: UCF Main Campus / Nicholson COM 145
View on the Virtual Platform: One week streaming from 10/28/24 to 11/03/24
SYNOPSIS
English and Portuguese with English subtitles
Connecting the country’s recent past and the turbulent present context, I Owe You a Letter About Brazil investigates the persistence of silence as a tool to erase memory.
Filmmaker Carol Benjamin untangles her grandmother’s intimate writings in an attempt to understand the story of their family against the brutal backdrop of the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964 – 1985).
Her father, César Benjamin, was arrested in August 1971 during student protests against the Brazilian military dictatorship. Although he was a juvenile, he was tried as an adult and sentenced to 13 years in prison. Thanks to the ardent campaigning of his mother Iramaya, working closely together with the Swedish branch of Amnesty International, he was released five years later.
Everything Benjamin knows about this dark period in her father’s life, she has heard from her grandmother, as César himself refuses to talk about it. Hoping to better understand this part of her family history, she travels to Sweden to meet with the people who were involved in the campaign for his release.