ESU Celebrates Latino Heritage Month With Second Annual Film Festival

Posted by: admin on August 29, 2014, No Comments

East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania (ESU) celebrates Latino Heritage Month with its second annual Latino Film Festival, presenting the best of contemporary 2013 and 2014 feature films and documentaries from Spain, Latin America, and the United States. The festival will run from September 13 through September 21 and all films will be shown in Beers Lecture Hall on ESU’s campus.

The festival is co-sponsored by the department of modern languages, the office of the dean of the college of arts and sciences, the Student Activity Association, the office of multicultural affairs, the Frederick Douglass Institute of ESU, and the departments of English, theatre, history, and sociology, social work and criminal justice.

Kicking off the festival on Saturday, September 13, will be Las vacas con gafas / Cows Wearing Glasses (Puerto Rico), a film about a solitary and eccentric painter and art professor, who has a disease that will cause him to lose his sight and has forced him to rethink his relationship with his daughter and take stock of a life full of professional success but personal dissatisfaction. There will be a question and answer session to follow with the director, Alex Santiago Pérez. Also on September 13 will be ¿Quién es Dayani Cristal? / Who is Dayani Cristal? (Mexico, USA), which tells the story of a migrant worker who found himself in the deadly stretch of desert known as “the corridor of death” and shows how one life becomes testimony to the tragic results of the U.S. war on immigration. This movie is for mature audiences only. Following the movie will be a question and answer session with Robin Reineke, who is featured in the film.  Reineke is a doctoral student in anthropology from the University of Arizona, which founded the Missing Migrant Project, an organization that helps families search for missing relatives. On Sunday, September 14, the film Arrugas / Wrinkles (Spain), based on Paco Roca’s national award-winning graphic novel, illustrates the visual beauty and tender emotion that can be created by traditional animation as it tackles a universal subject matter with humor and acerbic wit.

The following week on Saturday, September 20, Pelo malo / Bad Hair (Venezuela), depicts Junior, a precocious 9-year-old boy living in the housing projects of Caracas who wants nothing more than to straighten his head of tight curls for his yearbook photo. This is a painfully tender coming-of-age drama about a boy caught in a maelstrom of identity and intolerance. This movie is for mature audiences only.

The final movie of the film festival will take place on Sunday, September 21. This film, titled Pensé que iba a haber fiesta / I Thought it Was a Party (Argentina, Spain), tells the story of two best friends, Ana and Lucia. Sparks fly between Ana and Lucia’s ex, Ricky, and suddenly Ana finds herself caught among her best friend, her new lover, and her fear of commitment. This movie is for mature audiences only. Following the screening will be a question and answer segment with the director, Victoria Galardi.

All of the films are free and open to the public, and some films are for mature audiences only.  Parking is free, except for metered spaces.  For further information please contact Annie Mendoza, Ph.D., assistant professor of modern languages at 570-422-3407.