Director: Alonso Ruizpalacios Mexico | 2024 | Spanish with English subtitles | 139 min | Fiction Based on the acclaimed stage play by Arnold Wesker, La Cocina is a tragic and comic tribute to the invisible people who prepare our food. It is the lunchtime rush at The Grill, a New York tourist trap that […]
Dir. Luna Marán | Mexico, 2024 Spanish with English subtitles | 97 mins | Narrative Yuli is the topila (auxiliary police) of San Pablo Begu´, a mountain community in the north of Oaxaca where the inhabitants on a rotating basis assume the responsibilities of self-government on a rotating and honorary basis (communality) along with their […]
Dir. Mauricio Albornoz | Argentina, 2024 Spanish with English subtitles | 90 mins | Documentary | Rated PG In a rural town in Argentina, Ramiro Lezcano, a charismatic music teacher, discovers a disturbing reality affecting the region: airplanes and ground fertilizing machines spray near rural schools, endangering the health of his students. Determined to take […]
*There is a second screening on Wednesday, Sept 10th at Cineworks Dir. Antonella Sudasassi | Costa Rica, 2024 Spanish with English subtitles | 90 min | Narrative This is the second feature film by Antonella Sudasassi, an up and coming Costa Rican filmmaker. Growing up in a repressive era when sexuality was a taboo subject, […]
Los Loches is a new musical project from long-time friends Trevor Stewart and Nadim Woolgar. Trevor is a local troubadour hailing from Burns Lake, BC, known for his soulful voice. Nadim, originally from Santa Cruz, Bolivia, blends rich Bolivian musical traditions with a dynamic, experimental edge. Together, they create a sound that’s intimate, unexpected, and […]
Dir. Klaudia Reynicke | Peru, 2024 Spanish with English subtitles | 104 min | Narrative There is a second screening of REINAS on Sept 12th REINAS is an intense, choral and moving tale of initiation in the spirit of the 90s. Everything happens very fast in Lima in the summer of 1992. Lucia, Aurora and […]
Dir. Segundo Carlos Fuérez | Ecuador, 2024 | Rated PG Chimborazo Highland Quichua with English subtitles | 72 min | Narrative, animation, experimental Film inspired by an Ecuadorian oral story. Puka Urpi is about the adventure of Killa, a 5-year-old girl who, after the death of her mother, moves from the city to the countryside […]
Director: Anna Muylaert Brazil | 2025 | Portuguese with English subtitles | 105 min | The Festival is pleased to announce, as its Opening Night Film on September 5, the North American premiere of the latest film by the incredible Brazilian director, Anna Muylaert, (to whom VLAFF dedicated a retrospective in 2016) with a repeat […]
Director: Gal S. Castellanos Mexico | 2024 | Spanish with English subtitles | 75 min | Documentary My dad dies. Days later, my mom escapes to Turkey to meet her secret Facebook lover. I propose to my mother that we communicate through video letters. These video correspondences reveal our attempts to see each other through […]
Gaia Lacandona (it/that) is a nonbinary Mestizx drag educator from Mexico and a UBC Public Scholar whose doctoral research supports educators recognizing the relationships between sexuality, gender, racialization, and settler colonialism. For the past fifteen years, they have worked in educational leadership and curriculum with a passion and commitment to decolonization, social justice and Indigenous […]
Dir. Ana Endara Lozano | Panana, 2024 Spanish with English subtitles | 108 min | Narrative Venue: The Cinematheque **There is 2nd screening of this film on Sept 12 Set in Panama City, this delicate and atmospheric drama explores the evolving relationship between two dissimilar lonely souls who develop a touching and unexpected bond. Ana […]
Dir. Bernard Lessa | Brazil, 2024 Portuguese & Spanish with English subtitles | 78 min | Narrative Akin is one of the Cuban doctors working in Brazil in 2018. With the election, the cooperation between Brazil and Cuba ends. Doctors are asked to return to their country of origin. Akin is at a crossroads. Return […]