First-Ever Major Latin Film Festival Presented by The Film Society of Minneapolis St. Paul at St. Anthony Main Theatre, November 3-13

NOTE - Mention this article in Mill City Times and receive a discounted ticket rate of $7.50! 

CELEBRATING THE BEST OF LATIN FILM FROM AROUND THE WORLD

The Film Society of Minneapolis St. Paul announced the Twin Cities’ first-ever major Latin Film Festival, presenting more than 30 films from Central and South America, Mexico, and Spain at St. Anthony Main Theatre, is slated for November 3-13.
 
During the Fest’s ten-day run, audiences can celebrate the diverse world of Spanish language cinema, and enjoy Opening and Closing Night parties. Visiting filmmakers include Gabriel Figueroa Flores (Mexico), photographer son of the celebrated Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa, here for a retrospective of his father’s work, Trisha Ziff (Mexico), director of the acclaimed documentary THE MEXICAN SUITCASE, and Viviana García Besné (Mexico), director of the festival darling PERDIDA.
 
Stay tuned for more on the Opening Night Film And Party!
 
Chosen as the closing night film is the gritty crime thriller ELITE SQUAD 2: THE ENEMY WITHIN, Brazil’s highest-grossing film ever made and winner of multiple festival awards for Cinematography, Best Actor, and Best Picture. The film, by writer-director José Padilha’s (Bus 174), follows a crack team from Special Police Operations in their battle to oust drug traffickers from the slums of Rio de Janeiro.
 
Noteworthy programming includes retrospectives on Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa and Chilean director Patricio Guzman, as well as an impressive slate of films by women filmmakers.  In addition, the Festival’s visiting filmmakers will participate in discussion panels and presentations.
 
Notable films and programs include:
 
A PORTRAIT OF DIEGO: THE REVOLUTIONARY GAZE:  Dir. Gabriel Figueroa Flores (Mexico) attending! Considered the greatest Mexican painter of the 20th century, and known for his enormous frescos capturing moments in Mexico’s history, Diego Rivera began this documentary in collaboration with Mexico’s renowned cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa and world famous photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo. Completed by Rivera’s grandson Diego Rivera Lopez and Figueroa’s son Gabriel Figueroa Flores, the film was released to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Rivera’s death, and illustrates the socio-political impact of Rivera’s work during the end of Mexico’s Civil War.
 
THROUGH THE LENS OF GABRIEL FIGUEROA: A RETROSPECTIVE:  Gabriel Figueroa Flores (Mexico) attending!  The work of Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa is legend.  His award-winning, Oscar-Nominated, and prolific chef d’ouevre of more than 200 films includes numerous Buñuel titles (The Exterminating Angel, los Olvidados), an adaptation of John Steinbeck’s The Pearl, and John Houston’s Under the Volcano and Night of the Iguana. Selections from his work will be introduced and discussed in this unique retrospective by Figueroa’s son, Gabriel Figueroa Flores.
  
THE MEXICAN SUITCASE:  Director Trisha Ziff (Mexico) attending!  This internationally acclaimed documentary highlights the extraordinary recovery of a forgotten suitcase containing 4,500 photos taken between 1936 and 1939. Shot by legendary photographer Robert Capa and fellow photographers Gerda Taro and David “Chim” Seymour, these intrepid images dramatically changed public opinion on the home front during the Spanish Civil War, and altered how such conflicts will forever be viewed.
 
POR EL CAMINO:  Director Charly Braun (Brazil) invited and Actor Esteban Feune de Colombi (Argentina) attending! Brilliantly melding South American, Francophone, and U.S. influences, award-winning director Charly Braun captures the airy restlessness of youth in this spirited road movie following two twenty-somethings who meet while traveling through the breathtaking costal vistas and back roads of Uruguay.
 
GRANITO: HOW TO NAIL A DICTATOR:  Director Pamela Yates attending! Reinforcing the power of film to effect change, this poignant and compelling documentary from director Pamela Yates shares a spirit of revolutionary solidarity with her 1984 feature-length debut “When the Mountains Tremble” as she revisits the horrors of Guatemala’s Civil War and the genocide trials of convicted dictator Efraín Ríos Montt.
 
PERDIDA: Director Viviana García Besné Present!  This film traces the unbelievable true story of the Calderón family, which built grand movie palaces in Mexico and the U.S. and employed thousands to produce incomparable, hugely successful, often reprehensible populist-genre films utterly and uniquely Mexican. Told by Viviana García Besné—whose grand-uncle was mogul José Luis Calderón—this personal tale from inside an alternate universe offers glimpses of utterly unknown zaftig saturnine actresses, overweight masked wrestlers, human robots and Aztec mummies… all driven by a shameless but keen commercial impulse. And the cinematic fantasies are mirrored by an even stranger labyrinth of internal sibling strife, film business clashes, Hollywood affairs, bankruptcies and anti-intellectual tirades. –Telluride Film Festival
 
THE LIFE OF FISH: Matias Bize’s Goya Award Winner and Chile’s candidate for an Oscar for Best Foreign Film.  A theatrically staged and insightful story in which an upscale party becomes the backdrop for sophisticated Chileans to confront their pasts and revisit lost loves.  The film features a not-to-be-missed performance from award-winning Chilean actress Blanca Lewin. 
 
BONSÁI: Adapted from the novel by Alejandro Zambra, a Chilean Critics Award-Winner, and Latin America’s hottest new writer, who is considered by many to have instigated a new era in the nation’s letters. Thoughtfully composed and brilliantly photographed by Cristian Jimenez, this delicate, whimsical, and melancholic romance fluidly moves back and forth eight years in the life of would-be writer Julio.
 
Check mspfilmsociety.org for more titles, and stay tuned for the unveiling of the Official Latin Film Festival website.
 
The Latin Film Festival is produced by The Film Society of Minneapolis St. Paul.  The Film Society also presents a diverse slate of international, independent, and art-house films year-round on Screen 3 at St. Anthony Main Theatre, as well as the annual Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Film Festival each April.  The Latin Film Festival is part of a series of geographically focused film festivals, the Asian Film Festival in 2010, the Latin Festival in 2011, and the Trans-African Film Festival in 2012, all made possible in part by funding from the Legacy Amendment.   
 
For more information about the Latin Film Festival and other Film Society programming, contact Jesse Bishop at 612.331.7563, or visit The Film Society website. 

And don't forget, mention this article in Mill City Times and receive a discounted ticket rate of $7.50!