Cine Latino, Australia’s largest festival of Latin American cinema returns for its second year with screenings in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra and Adelaide – as well as adding Hobart to its 2017 itinerary.
The festival’s 2016 partnership with Los Angeles based ‘Hola Mexico Film Festival’ continues this year, bringing a selection of the best contemporary Mexican films to Australia. This year’s line up will also include a new sidebar: Cine Argentina, focusing on the best new films from Argentina.
Cine Latino announced five films that will screen as part of its 2017 program.
Following its history-making screening at Sundance is the Dominican Republic’s WOODPECKERS (CARPINTEROS), directed by José María Cabral. Blending documentary and fiction, the film is set in corresponding male and female prisons where inhabitants use a special sign language called ‘woodpecking’ to forge connections.
Peruvian film CRAZY IN LOVE (LOCOS DE AMOR), from director Frank Pérez-Garland, embraces an energetic musical format to tell the stories of several couples living in the country’s capital, Lima. Equally charming and sincere, the film is performed to a brilliant soundtrack of Latin American hit songs from yesteryear.
Iván Gaona’s GUILTY MEN (PARIENTE), Colombia’s nail-biting entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards, is the story of a trucker/DJ engaging in a dangerous game with Santander’s paramilitaries, as he attempts to reunite with a former flame.
Winner of two major prizes at Cannes 2017, and based on true events, Brazilian writer/director Fellipe Barbosa’s spectacular GABRIEL AND THE MOUNTAIN (GABRIEL E A MONTANHA) is a moving and richly-layered road movie; a re-creation of a journey through Kilimanjaro, Kenya, Malawi and Zambia, as through the eyes of the eponymous traveller.
Manane Rodriguez (The Lost Steps) directs BREADCRUMBS (MIGAS DE PAN), a film centered around the Uruguayan dictatorship of the 70s and 80s and its impact on a young woman after she is captured by the military. The film stars award-winning Argentine actor Cecilia Roth.