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FILM-US:
Latino Fest in the Fray of Pop Culture's
Lucha Libre
By Enrique Gili
SAN DIEGO, California (IPS) - The San Diego
Latino Film Festival is perhaps the biggest
little film festival most people outside of
Southern California have never heard of.
Big because the festival showcases the vast
array of talent living on both sides of the
U.S.-Mexico border, and small because the
commercial appeal of Spanish-speaking films
in the U.S. market is almost negligible.
Nonetheless, the festival attracts a diverse
crowd eager to create their own space in
modern cinema. An estimated 20,000-plus
people attend the festival over the course
of a two-week period from Mar. 12 through
Mar. 22.
Now in its 16th season, the festival is the
brainchild of Ethan Van Thillo, executive
director of the Media Arts Centre San Diego,
a city-wide nonprofit organisation dedicated
to promoting technical skills and media
literacy in underserved communities.
The festival began modestly, showing student
films in improvised spaces and later growing
into its present format located in a
multiplex movie theatre near downtown San
Diego. This year, the festival screened 173
entrants, including feature-length films,
shorts, and documentaries, from as far
afield as Argentina and nearby as Tijuana,
Mexico.
Sales are brisk at the box office,
attracting a large crowd waiting in eager
anticipation to see movies ranging in
spectrum from light comedic fare to prison
dramas. "We have to offer something for
everyone," Van Thillo said.
"We’ve seen a lot of great work come out of
film schools in Mexico, Argentina and
Spain," he explained, observing the career
arc of directors who have presented at the
festival in prior years and are now
returning to the festival with
feature-length projects.
He’s showcased the early films of Alfonso
Cuaron (Y Tu Mama Tambien) and Guillermo del
Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth), among others. Both
Mexican-born filmmakers have matured into
movie-making powerhouses working in their
native country and abroad.
This year, Carlos Cuaron, Alfonso’s bother
and co-writer of "Y Tu Mama Tambien", has
returned with "Rudo y Cursi" in the hopes of
having similar success.
Standouts include Sundance favourite "Sin
Nombre", a border thriller, and "The
Garden", an award-winning documentary set in
Los Angeles that follows a Mexican-American
community’s effort to protect an urban farm
from development.
The San Diego Latino film festival, the
second largest in the country, has become an
essential stopping point for Hispanic
filmmakers seeking welcoming audiences.
"I got the film bug early," said film
director Javier Chapa, a fifth generation
Texan of Mexican-American ancestry, who was
accompanied by his multicultural cast and
crew to screen the premier of "Pepe & Santos
Vs. the United States", a light-hearted
comedy set in Brownsville, Texas about the
misadventures of day labourers in their
efforts to own a house.
Making the movie, Chapa had an epiphany. "I
thought, why don’t we celebrate Hispanic
culture through comedy?" he said. "Pepe &
Santos" combines elements of a Capra-esque
fable mixed with the socially conscious "El
Norte."
The film played to a predominantly Hispanic
crowd grown accustomed to seeing negative
portrayals of the immigrant experience. In
the question-and-answer session that
followed, more than one viewer felt
compelled to thank Chapa for making a movie
they and "our children could watch."
In 50 years' time, media anthropologists
wishing to study the demographic shift
currently taking place across the United
States might look to Latino film festivals
popping up around the United States. They
can be found not just in warm-blooded cities
such as Miami, Phoenix and Los Angeles, but
urban outposts like Chicago and San
Francisco.
As Hispanics emerge from their ethnic
enclaves in search of greater job and
economic opportunities, they are bringing
their culture with them. In doing so, they
are shaping the lucha libre that is U.S. pop
culture.
At the film festival, the two cultures
intertwine. Film geeks mingle with
middle-class Hispanic families. Spanish
freely mixes with English, often in tandem.
The films are as diverse as the populations
they portray.
According to the U.S. Census, Hispanics are
15 percent of the U.S. population. By 2050,
they will make up one-third. In border
states, Hispanics already belong to a
minority- majority population that includes
Asians and African-Americans.
Van Thillo calculates that 80 percent of the
audience is Hispanic, but increasingly,
non-Latinos are discovering Spanish-language
films. "There’s been an explosion of
interest in all things Latino," he said.
Spanish-language films are often lost in
translation in U.S. markets, paling in
comparison in terms of box office receipts -
no matter how favourably reviewed or
well-attended.
However, last year, "La Misma Luna" broke
box office records for a Spanish-language
film, earning 2.5 million dollars on its
opening weekend - numbers that can make a
studio executive think twice when searching
for profitable film projects.
In general, success still remains elusive
for Latino filmmakers working in either
language. "The potential of Latino cinema is
to be international," Van Thillo said.
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