22nd Vancouver Latin American Film Festival, Sept 5-15, 2024

  • 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)

    Cineworks
    1131 Howe Street (entrance in back lane)
    Vancouver, BC V6Z 2L7
    In memoriam: Narcisa Hirsch

    In memoriam: Narcisa Hirsch


    September 11, 2024

    skin

    Born in Germany yet Argentine by choice, Narcisa Hirsch was the pioneer of Argentine experimental cinema. This selection of six short films approaches Narcisa’s work from its beginnings in the late 1960s up to her last film Materia Oscura (2023).

    Narcisa’s gaze is expansive, it cuts across forms and the reflections it creates leave us in a narcotic state in which time and space slowly transform. She described this process as follows: “Cinema is what flows and leaves, that which doesn’t stay, an image every twenty-fourth of a second; cinema is being a dark room with others sharing a ritual. Yet, above all, it is the luminosity of the images, images that in being projected make visible other images, the internal, the ones that are kept, the dark and forgotten ones, in that beam of light that travels through the terrain to uproot us from where we are sitting and leave us melting with this light in a quasi passionate encounter.”

    Cineworks
    1131 Howe Street (entrance in back lane)
    Vancouver, BC V6Z 2L7
  • 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
    1131 Howe Street (entrance in back lane)
    Vancouver, BC V6Z 2L7
  • When Evil Lurks

    When Evil Lurks


    September 13, 2024

    When the residents of a small rural town discover that a demon is about to be born among them, they desperately try to escape, but it may be too late.

    Winner of Best Feature Film at Sitges Film Festival, 2023.
    Winner of Best Feature Film at Gérardmer Film Festival, 2024.

    The Cinematheque
    1131 Howe Street
    Vancouver, BC V6Z 2L7
  • 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
    1131 Howe Street
    Vancouver, BC V6Z 2L7