London Latino Film Festival 2011

Welcome to the
London Latino Film Festival!

Welcome to the second London Latino Film Festival 2011. Once again we have a vibrant selection of films, shorts and documentaries from Latin America. We are proud to have the UK Premier film “Havana Eva” a co-production between Cuba and Venezuela, and the UK Premier feature documentary "The Judge and the General" a Chilean / USA co-production. We also have the London Premier film "La Yuma" from Nicaragua and the Chilean film "Subterra", to pay a special tribute to the 33 miners rescued from a collapsed mine in the North of Chile. From 'La Villa del Cine' en Venezuela, we have the hilarious comedy "The Colour of Fame" and from the Latin American arcade, the classic Cuban film

"La Ultima Cena" (The Last Supper) by the prestigious Cuban film director, Tomas Gutierrez Alea (Titon). One of the aims of the London Latino Film Festival is to promote films from Latin America and gain interest from film distributors and television channels in the UK. London Latino also strive to bring awareness of the richness and diversity of the Latin American culture through films to London and other cities in the United Kingdom.

Los esperamos!!!

Sergio Leon, Director
Cuba Mia

2.30pm / Running Time: 60 Minutes / English Subtitles / Documentary

Director: Cecilia Domeyko
Country: Cuba/USA
Year: 2003

The documentary captures a few weeks in the lives of a Cuban all-woman orchestra called the Camerata Romeu. The film plays out more like a movie than a documentary. The cameras follow the musicians into their homes, offer a glimpse of their family lives, and track them as they commute to and from rehearsals. The film is structured so that all the struggles, the gruelling practice sessions, rehearsals, juggling of families and careers, culminate in a triumphant concert at the Basilica in Old Havana.
Metropolis

4.00pm / Running Time: 27 Minutes / English Subtitles / Video Dance

Director: Carlos Dittborn - Callejas
Country: Chile
Year: 2007

Metropolis is a Contemporary Dance Video located in a science fiction scenario that through a sarcastic language questions the man’s obsession for power. The purpose is to compose, through the cinematography, the integration with other artistic disciplines in order to reach a certain staging that allows dancing to be inserted within a particular narrative language. The work interprets how different displays of power reverberate in social inequality promoted by economy policies and how these differences are transformed into conditions which reveal the relationship of the subject with their bodies.
American-Sandinista

5.00pm / Running Time: 30 Minutes / English Subtitles / Documentary

Director: Jason Blalock
Country: Nicaragua/USA
Year: 2008

In the 1980s, at the height of the Cold War, a bloody civil war between the socialist-influenced Sandinistas and U.S.- backed Contras ravaged Nicaragua. Despite the danger, thousands of Americans disobeyed White House warnings and descended upon the Central American nation, determined to lend their skills and labor to the revolutionary Sandinista cause. Using an eclectic mixture of rare archival footage, arresting still photography, and contemporary interviews, American/Sandinista tells the story of a small group of controversial U.S. engineers who went further than anyone expected, and paid the ultimate price.

A discussion will follow with the public about the making and content of the documentary. Chair by Guisell Morales, Counsellor Minister, Embassy of Nicaragua London.
La Yuma (London Premier)

7.00pm / Running Time: 90 Minutes / English Subtitles

Director: Florence Jaugey
Country: Nicaragua
Year: 2009

The film tells the story of Yuma, a strong-willed and rebellious girl from the underprivileged, gang-infested barrios of Managua who dreams of becoming a boxer. In her neighbourhood, rival gangs battle each other for control of the street. In her home, lovelessness prevails. She dreams of the ring and figures it is her only option to escape the adverse conditions of her Deily life. One day she meets a journalism student from the other side of the city. Despite their many differences, they fall in love, attracted to each other by their shared desire to attain their dreams and find their own space in the world. Their relationship is soon threatened by Yuma’s jealous ex-boyfriend and her overprotective brother, yet Yuma’s combined physical and emotional strength helps her to stick to the right path and prevail.
El Juego De Arcibel (The Arcibel's Game)

9.00pm / Running Time: 115 Minutes / English Subtitles

Director: Alberto Lecci
Country: Argentina
Year: 2004

The year is 1967. In an imaginary Latin American country, ruled by the dictator General Abalorio, a young journalist, Arcibel Alegria, is taken to jail as a political prisoner due to a mistake made by the editor of the newspaper he works for. Arcibel, an apolitical, solitary person, will begin to know a world that was alien to him. Years go by and General Abalorio is elected president after democratic election and all political prisoners are set free except Arcibel who, due to a bureaucratic mess, will be confined to jail amongst common prisoners. He invents a new game of war and strategy, planting the seeds of revolution in his pupil. After Pablo escapes, a revolution is born throughout the country using Arcibel's strategy.
Opus Dei

2.30pm / Running Time: 52 Minutes / English Subtitles

Director: Marcela Said
Country: Chile
Year: 2006

A documentary that get into the heart of the Opus Dei, also known as La Obra (The Work) in Spanish, was founded in 1928 in Spain by a right-wing priest who has since been canonized. This strange sect, which promotes itself heavily as a "personal spiritual path", flourished in Franco's fascist Spain, thanks to its affinity for the authoritarian and reactionary piety of those Catholics who supported Franco. It is active today in many countries throughout the world. But it was particularly prominent–even instrumental–in Pinochet's fascist Chile.
La Ciudad De Los Fotografos

7.00pm / Running Time: 80 Minutes / English Subtitles

Director: Sebastian Moreno
Country: Chile
Year: 2006

Double bill to commemorate the 38 anniversary of the Military Coup in Chile.

During Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship in the 1980s, a small group of independent photographers took to the streets and documented the atrocities, the violence, the riots and fighting that were going on around them in Santiago. Among them was the director’s father, whose testimony in words and pictures is laid out in this film, bringing images of the past to life.
The Judge and the General (UK Premier)

9.00pm / Running Time: 84 Minutes / English Subtitles / Documentary

Director: Elizabeth Farnsworth/Patricio Lanfranco
Country: Chile/USA
Year: 2007

A Chilean judge chosen to investigate criminal charges against former dictator General Augusto Pinochet undergoes a transformation, from Pinochet supporter to implacable prosecutor, as he uncovers the horrifying truth about the atrocities committed by the General's regime in the 1970s and '80s. Because he comes from a well connected conservative family that had opposed the socialist Allende's government overthrown by Pinochet's military coup in 1973, Guzmán’s colleagues doubted he would actively pursue the cases against Pinochet and others accused of human rights violations. But Guzman surprised them by taking his responsibility seriously. As in the best fictional dramas, several plot twists decide the judge's decision, dictator's fate and the future of human rights in Chile.
Danzak

2.30pm / Running Time: 20 Minutes / English Subtitles / Short

Director: Gabriela Yepes
Country: Peru
Year: 2008

Nina is a 10 year old girl whose life dramatically changes when her dying father and Scissor Dancer master asks her to fulfil his last wish. Inspired by the short story of a Peruvian writer Jose Maria Arguedas, "The Agony of Rasu Ñiti".
Cuba Mia

5.00pm / Running Time: 60 Minutes / English Subtitles / Documentary

Director: Cecilia Domeyko
Country: Cuba/USA
Year: 2003

The documentary captures a few weeks in the lives of a Cuban all-woman orchestra called the Camerata Romeu. The film plays out more like a movie than a documentary. The cameras follow the musicians into their homes, offer a glimpse of their family lives, and track them as they commute to and from rehearsals. The film is structured so that all the struggles, the gruelling practice sessions, rehearsals, juggling of families and careers, culminate in a triumphant concert at the Basilica in Old Havana.
Habana Eva (UK Premier)

7.00pm / Running Time: 117 Minutes / English Subtitles

Director: Fina Torres
Country: Cuba/France/Venezuela
Year: 2010

Eva works as a seamstress in a factory where she dreams to become a fashion designer and own a room to marry her long time partner Angel a laid back yet charming young man. Her destiny changes when she meets Jorge a handsome and wealthy exiled raised in Venezuela who visits Cuba with a more ambitious project than taking photos for a book. Eva falls for him and she would have to decide whether to go on with her Cuban boyfriend or leave with the foreigner.
The Colour Of Fame

9.00pm / Running Time: 85 Minutes / English Subtitles

Director: Alejandro Bellame
Country: Venezuela
Year: 2008

Magaly enters a TV contest looking for Marilyn Monroe look-alikes, pressured by her husband and a money prize of $25,000 to help them overcome their precarious financial situation. During the casting for the contest, Magaly meets Norma, her strongest and cheating competitor, a voluptuous version of Marilyn; and Rossel, the sponsor, a well-suited millionaire who is sure about conquering her. Looking for an adviser for the contest, Magaly and Arturo find Hector, a transvestite that believes himself to be Monroes reincarnation. He tries to do with Magaly what he can't do with himself as a man: to become the real Marilyn Monroe. In the process of becoming Marilyn Monroe, Magaly suffers an identity crisis that mimics the life of the mythical blonde.
Mercano The Martian (animation for 12+)

2.30pm / Running Time: 75 Minutes / English Subtitles

Director: Ayar Blasco
Country: Argentina
Year: 2002

A Martian, Mercano, is left abandoned on Earth after the crash of his flying saucer. He longs to return home. He succeeds in hooking up an internet connection and contacts his friends to come and get him but when he gets through they appear disinterested in doing so. He then learns that he can use the computer to create a virtual simulation of Mars in cyberspace. There he befriends a lonely teenage nerd, Julian. But Julian's father, a business executive, learns about the virtual Mars and wants to buy it. He fools Mercano with the promise of building him a spaceship to go home, but then imprisons him and extracts the secrets of Martian technology from his brain.
Farmingville

5.00pm / Running Time: 78 Minutes / English Subtitles

Director: Carlos Sandoval/Catherine Tambini
Country: USA
Year: 2004

The shocking hate-based attempted murders of two Mexican day laborers catapult a small Long Island town into national headlines, unmasking a new front line in the border wars: suburbia. For nearly a year, Carlos Sandoval and Catherine Tambini lived and worked in Farmingville, New York, so they could capture first-hand the stories of residents, day laborers and activists on all sides of the debate. This timely and powerful film is more than a story about illegal immigration. Ultimately it challenges viewers to ask what the 'American dream' really means.
Subterra

7.00pm / Running Time: 108 Minutes / English Subtitles

Director: Marcelo Ferrari
Country: Chile
Year: 2004

Special screening, a homage to the Chilean Miners and the miners of the world.

Struggling miners rise up against their bosses in this period drama set in the late 19th century. Luis is a wealthy and powerful man who owns a coal-mining operation in Chile. Luis' daughter Virginia has just completed her studies to become a schoolteacher when her mother dies of a lingering illness, and she comes home to be with her family. As Virginia's godmother, Isidora, takes over the day-to-day affairs of the estate, Luis turns over the chores of overseeing the mines to his assistant, a ruthless man named Davis so he may pursue his own interests.
La Ultima Cena

9.00pm / Running Time: 110 Minutes / English Subtitles

Director: Tomas Gutierrez Alea
Country: Cuba
Year: 1976

From the archive, a classic of Latin America Cinema (the film has some colour deterioration).

The spirit of Spanish surrealist Buñuel hangs in the air as "The Last Supper" offers a thought-provoking meditation on master hood and servitude, freedom and bondage. This scathing black comedy from Cuban satirist Alea is an intricate and uncompromising fable, alarmingly based on a true story. In the 18th century, the wealthy owner of a sprawling Havana plantation hosts his own Last Supper, appointing himself as Christ and a dozen slaves as the apostles. When the religious role-playing gets drunkenly out of hand, the result is a slave rebellion and the ownership must reassert its place of precedence in the scheme of things.