Big news, movie buffs! The Chicago Latino Film Festival (CLFF) is returning for its 38th season beginning April 21st through May 1st. The festival’s growth has been impressive, starting with 500 attendees in 1985 to more than 35,000 film fanatics today! With over 100 films from Latin America, Spain, Portugal, and the U.S. screened, CLFF is a great way to experience the Latino culture, right here here in Chicago. Check out this year’s most anticipated films.
1991
While the Army and the guerrillas were waging a violent war in the mountains leading to the extermination of hundreds of indigenous communities, a different kind of war broke out in the big city. On the one side, indigenous kids who found, in breakdancing and hip hop, a way to express themselves; on the other, upper-middle-class teens like Daniel, who chase these breakers down with baseball bats.
Blood-Red Ox
Lebanese American journalist Amir and his boyfriend Amat visit a town in Bolivia that is being threatened by an oil company. Amat suddenly starts to see visions of a blood-red ox; as Amir tries to save him from these paranoid attacks, he begins to wonder if he is also losing his mind.
Blue Heart
In this bleak, chaotic world, a photojournalist, and his teenage son befriend a mysterious woman who is in search of her identity. Shot guerrilla-style for ten years, Coyula (Memories of Overdevelopment) continues his exploration of alternative realities and dualities with this story about loss, yearning, and uncertainty.
Loop
In this society each human being repeats the same action over and over again, in this society each human being repeats the same action over and over again, in this society each human being repeats the same action over and over again…
Dos Estaciones
Winner of the World Cinema Dramatic Competition Special Jury Award for Best Actress for Teresa Sánchez at this year’s Sundance Festival, González’s fiction feature debut takes place in his native Atotonilco, Jalisco, where foreign corporations and climate change threaten to wipe away the last vestiges of a homegrown, artisanal industry. Dos Estaciones quietly and subtly explores issues of gender identity and fluidity in a mostly conservative community.
Me & the Beasts
Starting a solo career turns out to be tougher than Andrés Bravo expected, especially now that many of his friends are leaving the country in search of better opportunities. But just as he is starting to despair, two mysterious beings dressed in yellow from head to toes decide to give him a helping hand.
Please Hold
In the near future, Mateo is wrongfully incarcerated due to a computer glitch. Realizing he has no means of recourse in the fully automated and fully privatized prison system, he fierously attempts to reach a real human being who can set things right.
Split Ends
Struggling to understand her grandmother’s dementia, Isa chops her long locks and immediately regrets it. Her obsession with her hair begins to suffocate her as she struggles with the fear of her family’s beauty standards and her complicated feelings of grief.
Yellow Sunglasses
Thirty-year-old Julia has a one-night stand with Darío, an attractive waiter, who introduces her to Ignacio, an employee at a photocopy store who is trying to be cast in a play. Together they will live an intense connection through which Julia will deal with her frustrations of not knowing if she will manage to be who she dreamed of being when she was young.
Featured Image Credit: Blood-Red Ox/blackvelvetmovies
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