The Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival, or simply referred to as “LALIFF” [pronounced: laleef] is in its 11th year. I’ve attended 9 of the 11 festivals and have witnessed its significant growth since its humble beginnings. The big change for this year is its new home. The new home for the festival is at the Arclight Cinemas – a change from the Egyptian Theatre. The Arclight Cinemas is located on Sunset Blvd in the heart of Hollywood, California.
The festival showcases short and feature-length documentaries and fiction films from all over Latin America; including films made by and/or about Latina/os in the U.S. The content of the films run the gamut from grassroots, politically tinged themes to cool and slick films backed by high-powered studios. I’ve seen some fantastic films from Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, etc. that unfortunately, have never made it to the U.S. big screens. The festival started on October 7 and ran until October 14, 2007. Make sure you check it out next year! To learn more go to www.laliff.org.
So now, on to las peliculas, (the movies)…
COCALERO
My favorite documentary at this year’s festival is Cocalero, directed by first time filmmaker, Alejandro Landes. Cocalero is an inspiring film that takes one on a journey through the Andes and the Amazon in Bolivia, following the grassroots campaign trail of Evo Morales. Wearing jeans and sneakers, and backed by a troop of Coca leaf farmers, Morales leads a historic bid to become Bolivia’s first Indigenous President against the odds – and wins!
Shot with a Panasonic DVX 100A, this verite style documentary uses very little archival footage and only on-the-spot interviews (no narration) giving us a glimpse into Aymara Indigenous culture, the impact of the American war on drugs and Bolivian society in general. Some of my favorite, simple yet intriguing scenes include watching Morales get a haircut, and watching the leaders of the MAS movement do the accounting.
There was no Q&A after this film, but according to the filmmaker’s website, Landes decided to fly to Bolivia without having secured access to the lead subject of his film! From then on, access to Morales was a bit shaky. At one point, Landes’ relationship with Morales grew cold and evasive and access was restricted because Morales believed that Landes and his crew were CIA agents. Luckily, the filmmakers regained Morales’ trust in time to shoot the electoral victory and providing an ending for the film.
The director, Landes, is Brazilian born, raised in Ecuador, graduated from Brown University and currently resides in Argentina. His pan-American film crew consists of a Cuban, a Colombian, a Mexican, a Brazilian, an Argentinian, a Venezuelan a Bolivian and a U.S. American. Cocalero opens in New York City on November 9 at the Cinema Village.
MALOS HABITOS
(Bad Habits)
What a tasty and guilty little pleasure! Simon Bross has made a brilliant, dark and comically twisted little treasure of a film- Malos Habitos/Bad Habits which recently premiered in the United States at the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival.
Malos Habitos takes place in an “end-time” Mexico, a gloomy place besieged by downpours, a terrain where people and places are swept away in rising flood waters. The story involves two interconnected and dysfunctional families and a convent full of eccentric nuns.
A successful architect, Gustavo (Marco Trevino), his model perfect wife, Elena (Elena de Haro) and their chubby, sweet daughter, (Elisa Vicedo) embody the perfect family. They live in a beautiful, contemporary house and appear to the casual observer as professional, urbane and sophisticated folk. But lurking below the surface of this seemingly ideal family are a lot of ugly little secrets. Eating disorders pit mother against daughter, while infidelity and professional stress separate husband and wife.
Intertwined and related to the drama of the family is the curious story of a young nun, Matilde (Jimena Ayala) who gives up her career as a doctor to enter a musty old convent. While her father is dismayed by his daughter’s choice of a religious life, the young nun tries to convince him that sometimes faith can do more for people than science.
Cloistered in their convent the nuns watch the doomsday scenario of floods on television while Matilde, troubled by the transpiring catastrophe prays incessantly for the rains to stop. As she prays she also engages in weird acts of penance and alimentary perversions to achieve altered states of consciousness and religious hallucinations.
This gloomy atmosphere is juxtaposed against the sensuous and succulent affair between the architect and his zaftig student and the secret and compulsive eating binges of his young daughter.
On one level Malos Habitos is an exploration of all kinds of eating disorders especially anorexia nervosa, bulimia and compulsive eating, but ultimately it addresses more than just the symptoms of the disease by presenting possible causes of dysfunctional behavior. It explores the repercussions of success, urban alienation and lack of true human connection within families, professional associations and religious communities.
The director has said that the film was made to entertain, but that if even one bulimic girl asks for help after seeing his film it will have been well served. Though Malos Habitos deals with eating disorders, Bross, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Ernesto Anaya, presents the basic human dilemma of spiritual hunger and our varied attempts to “feed the soul.”
Much More to come from this wonderful festival!
Maria Elena