New York Latino Film Festival Review: A Filmmaker’s Dream
Entering the New York Latino Film Festival, created by Calixto Chinchilla, which took place between AMC Times Square, the festival felt divided in the best way. It was a festival that was as much a door into the biggest social justice issues facing Latinx Americans and a networking event for filmmakers, which I thought was fantastic. On that alone, you did not have to have your film picked to want a VIP ticket to its Hennessy lounge and meet a potential collaborator.
Films like Michael Dominic’s Clean Hands, Andrew Morgan’s Long Gone By, and Cassius Corrigan’s HURACÁN were the roughest watch because they delve right into the inhumanity Latinos are facing in this moment. Let’s be honest. This world is DARK, but the light of humanity is born by how we confront this darkness. Hence, if NYLFF 2018 had more experimental films, this year felt like a look into how the human spirit is tested. I appreciated that because social justice focus because human rights’ violations are not often, deeply, or morally discussed because they are gut-wrenching and uncomfortable. Yet, they need to be had, especially amongst our own community.
Do Latinx discuss our historical and present violations? Do we talk about it enough? This was a question I asked myself, and felt pertinent to many of the movies such as Van Maximilian Carlson’s Princess of The Row or Diana Peralta’s De Lo Mio. Culture, society, and history play out in the every day of our lives and thus our futures. You cannot avoid their effect on your choices or access to a choice. Still, there were films like Gabriela Calvache’s La Lala Noche and Nathan Catucci’s Impossible Monsters that managed to bring a level thrill to human analysis. Even when the festival was not, specifically, confronting social issues, it still felt social pertinent and commenting such as, in the 20th Anniversary Celebration of Darnell Martin’s I Like It Like That and Jennifer Sharp’s Uni Great Movie. Both are phenomenal comedies that are unafraid to say prejudice is not a laughing matter. .Princess of the Row Trailer – Cinequest 2019
It was nice to see so many Latinx filmmakers, actors, screenwriters, directors, and producers under one roof meeting each otherFor however far we have come as Latinx in America, we are still not in major positions of power, but NYLFF proved that in uniting we can make our power. I respect that and, once again, like that it was as much a film fest as it was a networking event; giving even one lucky comedian a better chance at a mainstreamed career. For More Information On NYLFF Click Here.
UPDATE TO INCLUDE WINNERS:
Best Webseries | UNO POR UNO: THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS
Directed by: Eddie Mujica
The story of Yuskobe Rodriguez, a Cuban immigrant who joins a pickup basketball game and changes the players’ lives forever.
Best International Feature | LA MALA NOCHE
Directed by: Gabriela Calvache
Gabriela Calvache’s insistently serious thriller debut from Ecuador is a fearless and eye-opening look inside the world of human trafficking and the mafia underworld, focusing on one woman’s quest for justice.
Best Documentary | CLEAN HANDS
Directed by: Michael Dominic
Shot over the course of seven years, 2011-2018 in Nicaragua, Clean Hands is a feature-length fly-on-the-wall documentary which tells the story of the Lopez family surviving against the backdrop of Central America’s largest garbage dump, La Chureca and beyond. It is about family, extreme poverty, the hope and innocence of children, rescue and salvation, and the challenges we all face.
Best U.S. Feature | PAPER BOATS
Directed by: Yago Muñoz
Hearing the news that his estranged daughter faces deportation, a man who seems to have lost it all recovers the will to live after agreeing to take in her children in this heartwarming story about the meaning of love, family, and the pursuit of happiness. Paper Boats reminds us of the unconditional bond of family, and how the innocence of children can touch the most hardened of hearts.
Best Short Film | EL BALSERO
Directed by: Jose Navas
Nearly five years have passed since the Castro administration took office in Cuba, and the country is in a state of darkness and oppression. Freedom has been stripped from its people and daily life has been punctured by harassment and executions at the hands of Castro’s National Police.After his childhood friend is violently killed in an altercation with a Castro sympathizer, 21 year old Reinaldo realizes he must find a way out and regain his freedom at any cost.
