22nd Vancouver Latin American Film Festival, Sept 5-15, 2024
-
Opening Night: La Suprema
Opening Night: La Suprema
September 5, 2024
Director Felipe Holguín Caro in attendance!
A feisty teenage girl dreams of being a boxer, but life is not making it easy for her. She lives in the remote community of La Suprema, so remote, in fact, that it's not even on the map. When she learns that her estranged uncle is going to be boxing for the World Championship, she becomes obsessed with watching the match... There's just one hitch: no one in the village has a TV and there's no electricity for miles.
Winner of the Audience Award at FICCI - Cartagena Film Festival, 2024SFU Woodward's -
Skin in Spring
Skin in Spring
September 6, 2024
Sandra, the new security guard at a shopping centre, crosses paths with a bus driver during her daily commute through Medellín. Through various experiences of desire, she begins a journey towards self-discovery and reclaiming her sexuality.
Nominated for Best First Feature Award at Berlinale, 2024.
The CinemathequeTomorrow Before After/Mañana antes despuésTomorrow Before After/Mañana antes después
September 6, 2024
Director Alfonso Quijada in attendance!
In a post-apocalyptic world, a young woman, with the help of an abandoned dog, searches for other survivors while trying to cope with an unborn child growing inside of her.6:15 pm: English narration
8:30 pm: Spanish narration with English subtitlesThe CinemathequeMañana antes después/Tomorrow Before AfterMañana antes después/Tomorrow Before After
September 6, 2024
Director Alfonso Quijada in attendance!
In a post-apocalyptic world, a young woman, with the help of an abandoned dog, searches for other survivors while trying to cope with an unborn child growing inside of her.6:15 pm: English narration
8:30 pm: Spanish narration with English subtitlesThe Cinematheque -
La Suprema (with Kuayé)
La Suprema (with Kuayé)
September 7, 2024
Repeat screening of LA SUPREMA. Preceded by the short film KUAYÉ (13 min).
A short documentary film filled with the rhythm, flavour, and joy of the music of the Colombian Pacific. Fredy “Sebastián” Cuero, charismatic artist and marimba player, guides us from Guapi, Cauca, to Cali with his contagious smile and optimism, and his dream of being one of the best players in the world.The CinemathequeIgualada (with Three Rooms)Igualada (with Three Rooms)
September 7, 2024
In Colombia, a nation marred by profound racial and socio-economic disparities, a Black woman from a rural background challenges the status quo by launching a presidential campaign. Re-appropriating the term “igualada,” Francia Márquez, catapults a movement to the upper echelons of power, by refusing to “know her place.” Fifteen years in the making, this documentary peels back the curtain on how unprecedented change can happen.
Nominee, Grand Jury Prize, Sundance Film Festival, 2024
Preceded by the short film THREE ROOMS (dir. Andrea López, 10 min)
The Cinematheque -
Paths of Bulla and Tambó / Al Sabor Afro
Paths of Bulla and Tambó / Al Sabor Afro
September 8, 2024
Producer Natalia Rodriguez Garavito in attendance!
The documentary PATHS OF BULLA AND TAMBÓ: The Moñitos Heritage is a compilation of portraits of Bullerengueros and Bullerengueras from Moñitos, Córdoba, Colombia. Through songs and drumbeats, it creates sensitive and musical journeys that encourage encounters and conversations among people of different ages, vocations, and social conditions.
AL SABOR AFRO unfolds the culinary history of Afro-descendant women in the municipality of Moñitos, Córdoba (popularly called “the paradise of the Caribbean”) through the eyes of Amalia, a young entrepreneur from the community.
The Cinematheque -
The Soldier's Lagoon
The Soldier's Lagoon
September 9, 2024
Directed by Pablo Alvarez-Mesa, this riveting experimental work delves deep into the misty Páramo region, into an ecosystem rich in water, but also saturated with oral narratives that populate the territory like foggy patches. Reflecting on the construction of oral history and its relation to the land, the film traverses a living and elusive archive, suspended between Simon Bolivar’s past and Colombia’s present.
The Cinematheque -
Skin in Spring
Skin in Spring
September 10, 2024
Sandra, the new security guard at a shopping centre, crosses paths with a bus driver during her daily commute through Medellín. Through various experiences of desire, she begins a journey towards self-discovery and reclaiming her sexuality.
Nominated for Best First Feature Award at Berlinale, 2024.
Cineworks -
Guián (with Three Rooms)
Guián (with Three Rooms)
September 11, 2024
As a consequence of her grandma Guián passing away, Nicole starts meeting up with people who had known her. In them, Nicole finds a poetic resemblance between these members of the Chinese-Costa Rican community and her deceased grandma.
From these conversations Nicole finds the need to go to Engping, the village in Southern China that her grandma fled amidst the rise of communism. This will be the first time Nicole steps onto Chinese soil. Having never learned Chinese, she must confront the reality of a country and culture she thought she knew.
Received Special Mention as part of the Burning Lights Competition at Visions du Réel, 2023.
Preceded by the short film THREE ROOMS (dir. Andrea López, 10 mins)
CineworksBridges Over the Sea (with Teresa's Choice)Bridges Over the Sea (with Teresa's Choice)
September 11, 2024
Director Patricia Ayala in attendance!
Alicia and Michael, her teenage son, live in a palafitic neighbourhood in Tumaco, an area in the Colombian Pacific that concentrates all the beauty and also the terror of this country. She knows that the armed group, which controls her neighbourhood, can recruit her son at any time. It is why she guards him, watches over him and protects him. But one day, Michael does not return from school and she begins a frantic search that will lead her to face her worst fears, finding the way out in the love and solidarity of her people.Preceded by the short film TERESA'S CHOICE with director Marlene Castaños in attendance.
The Cinematheque -
Open Sky (with The Vampires of Poverty)
Open Sky (with The Vampires of Poverty)
September 12, 2024
A Peruvian father labours patiently, chipping at the white volcanic stone that forms an extraordinary landscape. His son is part of the modern world: he uses cameras and drones in order to create the digital model of a church on a computer. Separated by the mysterious death of the wife/mother figure in the family, these men do not connect, and yet their paths cross in a ghostly manner.
Preceded by THE VAMPIRES OF POVERTY (1977, 28 min)
A classic film of Colombian cinema by directors Carlos Mayolo & Luis Opsina that simulates being a documentary about filmmakers who exploit misery with mercantilist purposes. It is a scathing criticism of “porno-misery” and the opportunism of the dishonest documentary making “socio-political documentaries” in the third world to sell them in Europe and win prizes.Cineworks -
Bridges Over the Sea
Bridges Over the Sea
–
September 13, 2024
Director Patricia Ayala in attendance!
Alicia and Michael, her teenage son, live in a palafitic neighbourhood in Tumaco, an area in the Colombian Pacific that concentrates all the beauty and also the terror of this country. She knows that the armed group, which controls her neighbourhood, can recruit her son at any time. It is why she guards him, watches over him and protects him. But one day, Michael does not return from school and she begins a frantic search that will lead her to face her worst fears, finding the way out in the love and solidarity of her people.
Cineworks -
Open Sky
Open Sky
September 14, 2024
Director Felipe Esparza Pérez in attendance!
A Peruvian father labours patiently, chipping at the white volcanic stone that forms an extraordinary landscape. His son is part of the modern world: he uses cameras and drones in order to create the digital model of a church on a computer. Separated by the mysterious death of the wife/mother figure in the family, these men do not connect, and yet their paths cross in a ghostly manner.
The Cinematheque