By Jenna French
Each year, the Spanish division of the department of Modern Languages sponsors the Latin American Film Festival, which “provides an opportunity to show Latin American films that wouldn’t normally be shown in Louisville,” said Dr. Manuel Medina, one of the chairpersons for the event.
This festival is an opportunity to see popular films centered around Latin American culture and to experience a unique atmosphere on campus. This year, the film festival began on Sept. 15 and will wrap up on Oct. 13. A new film is shown every Thursday at 7:15 p.m. in Strickler Hall for five weeks.
The film festival samples new productions from Latin American culture, usually focusing on a few select countries every year. The countries this year include Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and Spain. The movies are chosen in different ways every year: a theme or other criteria help them make the selections. This year, Medina picked Latin American movies from the past three years that are not available as rentals. Currently, the department is only allotted five movies, but Medina hopes in the future that number will increase.
This makes for the 11th Latin American Film Festival, but the actual festival is only in its ninth year. In the beginning, a festival was held in both the fall and spring semesters, but now it’s only held once a year.
A diverse crowd is expected to attend. Medina estimates around “65 percent of the crowd will be people in the Louisville community.” There is a large population of Latin American residents in Louisville. Medina also believes Spanish teachers will enjoy the festival, as well as people in the Spanish program or people who have taken Spanish before but have fallen out of practice.
Dr. Lisa Wagner, another chairperson of the event, believed the crowd will be sizeable. Wagner decided to become a part of this program because she believes in “promoting Hispanic culture around the university.” The main goal of this film festival, said Medina, is to show Louisville what life is like on the other side.
He believes that Americans have many misconceptions about life in the Spanish-speaking world, and he hopes that this film festival will begin to bridge the cultural gap. The theme of this year is the struggle of age, mainly focusing on the fact that aging is the same process no matter what race you are. It’s important that people realize that we may not be as different from other cultures as we think, Medina said.
This film festival may be different from other Latin American film festivals in that this one is free, Wagner said. In addition to free admission, she believes that U of L’s screenings stand out because the department selects the films, shooting for movies that are “popular and representative of the chosen countries.”
The Latin American Film Festival will be showing “En la puta vida” (“In This Tricky Life”) on Sept. 22. The film is in Spanish with English subtitles, and it will be shown in Strickler Hall, room 102. Admission is free.
For a complete schedule, visit the film festival’s Web site at http://modernlanguages.louisville.edu/filmfestival, or call 852-6686 for more information.
