LATIN-CANADIAN SHORT FILM COMPETITION
The Vancouver Latin American Film Festival is pleased to announce a new competition section for works by Latin-Canadian directors, as well as Canadian directors with works that relate to Latin America. Although in the past, VLAFF has had competitions for Latin-Canadian directors, such as when we celebrated our 20th anniversary, the intention of this new competitive section is that it will be held annually.
During the 23 years of the Festival, we have always looked to support the works of Latin-Canadian directors – one of the Festival’s missions is precisely the promotion of these works – and although in the beginning it was difficult to find films for this section, every year we have received more and more submissions, from new immigrants or from that first generation of Latin-Canadian artists born in the country. The inclusion of these works has been one of the essential pillars that has turned VLAFF into a more vibrant festival.
Jorge Lozano (Colombia-Toronto), Claudia Morgado (Chile-Vancouver), Carlos Ferrand (Peru-Montreal), are some of the first filmmakers who had their films screened at our Festival, and who have recently been at VLAFF with their new works. Then came another generation with names such as the very prolific filmmaker Nicolás Pereda (Toronto-Mexico), Lina Rodriguez (Colombia-Toronto) or Pablo Álvarez-Mesa (Montreal-Toronto), all of them have premiered their films in some of the most important film festivals in the world and have been part of VLAFF on different occasions.
NO BIKINI, the short film written and directed by Claudia Morgado, was the first Latin-Canadian film presented at a VLAFF Opening Night in 2007. NO BIKINI had just won the Teddy Award, awarded to the best LGBTQ work at the prestigious Berlin International Film Festival. NO BIKINI tells the story of Robin and a glorious time when she was seven years old that defined her for the rest of her life.
NO BIKINI still stands as a beautiful moment in the history of VLAFF and with this competition, we hope that many more are yet to come.
Still from NO BIKINI (Claudia Morgado)
The winning short film will receive a cash prize of $500 CAD.
