Festival to screen seven award-winning films—from Bolivia to Mexico

Cal State L.A. presents its 2011 Latin American Film Festival

 What:           2011 Latin American Film Festival at Cal State L.A.

When:           Thursdays, Jan. 27 – Mar. 10, 6 – 8 p.m. 

Where:         Salazar Hall, room E-184, on the Cal State L.A. campus.

Info:             For directions, go to /univ/maps/. For festival details, go to http://latinamericanfilmfestival.blogspot.com/

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Los Angeles, CA – Beginning Thursday, Jan. 27, the 2011 Latin American Film Festival at Cal State L.A. will feature award-winning films from Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala and Bolivia, among others, that profile and dramatize the history and traditional cultures of Latinos in the United States.

The festival will be held every Thursday through Mar. 10, from 6 to 8 p.m., at Salazar Hall, room E-184, on the CSULA campus. The films will be screened in Spanish and with English subtitles. Admission is free to the public.

According to Roberto Cantú, CSULA professor of English/Chicano studies and the festival coordinator, “The films reveal a cinematic art in which poets and composers, such as Xavier Villaurrutia and Silvestre Revueltas, were involved in the writing of screenplays and musical scores. It is the Latin American response to Hollywood: a different cinema but with its own universal appeal.”  

The following films will be introduced by designated Cal State L.A. faculty members:

Vámonos con Pancho Villa (México, Fernando de Fuentes, 1936)” – Roberto Cantú, Chicano Studies/English

Bolívar soy yo (Colombia/Francia/México, Jorge Ali Triana, 2001) – Aaron Sonnenschein, English

Elpidio Valdés (Cuba,  Juan Padrón, 1979) – Enrique Berumen, TV, Film and Media Studies

La boca del lobo (Perú, Francisco J. Lombardi, 1988) – Angela Vergara, History

Miranda regresa, el héroe de tres revoluciones (Venezuela, Luis Alberto Lamata, 2007) – Enrique Ochoa, History

Los hermanos Cartagena (Bolivia, Paolo Agazzi, 1984) – Beth Felice Baker-Morales, Latin American Studies

The festival will culminate on Mar. 10 with a screening of El silencio de Neto (1994), directed by Guatemalan filmmaker Luis Alberto Argueta. The film will be introduced by Samuel Schmidt of Universidad de Guadalajara en Los Angeles.

For the complete festival schedule, go to http://latinamericanfilmfestival.blogspot.com/.

The festival is co-sponsored by the University’s Departments of Chicano Studies, English, Latin American Studies, and Modern Languages and Literatures; the Universidad de Guadalajara en Los Angeles; and Unión Latina. For details, call Professor Cantú at (323) 343-2195.

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