The Latin American Film Festival turns 22 this Sunday, but don't expect a quarter-life crisis. With nearly 30 feature films and documentaries showing at nine venues across the Triangle and Piedmont Triad, the festival is coming into its own-and still striving to improve.
This year's festival, which runs from Nov. 2 to Nov. 18, focuses on African-rooted and youth cultures in Latin America. In the past the Consortium in Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke organized the event. But as the festival has grown, five other universities-North Carolina State University, North Carolina Central University, Durham Technical Community College, Guilford College and UNC-Greensboro have become co-sponsors.
Festival Director Miguel Rojas-Sotelo explained that the selection committee, composed of film scholars from participating universities, wanted to give this year's festival a more defined theme than in years past.
"We realized that Afro and youth cultures are two topics that mix together-there's a cultural dynamic because of music," he said. "They get together in rap music, in new popular music of the region-samba, reggaeton, salsa, even contemporary rhythms in rock. Youth are using these rhythms to say things."
The emphasis on Afro music and culture will be front and center at the festival's kickoff, where local Latino rappers will perform in conjunction with a film about five Cuban rap bands.
To add to the experience, festival organizers have arranged for several filmmakers to present their films at the festival, including Rodrigo Dorfman, the son of Duke Film/Video/Digital and Latin American Studies Professor Ariel Dorfman, who directed a film about his father's experience in exile from Chile.
"This year's festival is unique in that we have a large number of film directors here to show their films, more probably than we've had the other years," said Natalie Hartman, associate director of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. "We have people coming from Colombia [and] El Salvador and a number of local filmmakers as well."
Rojas-Sotelo said he hopes the festival can attract a broader audience-especially because of the region's burgeoning Hispanic community.
"The festival is a traditional event among universities and the academic world, but what we want to do is make a big step and come out of academia to bridge comunities," he said. "We have a responsibility to try and reach this community."
The Latin American Film Festival is spread across the Triangle, but three films will show on campus (above). All film showings are free and open to the public. For more information on the festival, visit latinfilmfestivalnc.com/.
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