The 19th annual Chicago Latino Film Festival, presented by the International Latino Cultural Center of Chicago, runs Friday, April 4, through Thursday, April 17. Film and video screenings will be at Association House, 2150 W. North; Bank One, Dearborn at Madison; Benton House, 3036 S. Gratten, second floor; Beverly Arts Center, 2407 W. 111th; Biograph; Columbia College Ludington Bldg.; Richard J. Daley College, 7500 S. Pulaski; Dominican Univ., 7900 W. Division, River Forest; Facets Cinematheque; I.C.E. Cinema, 2258 W. 62nd; Morton College, 3801 S. Central; North Park University, 3225 W. Foster; Northwestern Univ. Block Museum of Art; Three Penny; and Univ. of Illinois at Chicago Lecture Center B2, 750 S. Halsted. Tickets for most programs are $9; $8 for students, senior citizens, and disabled persons; $7 for members of ILCC and the Illinois Arts Alliance. Festival passes, good for ten screenings, not including special events, are $70, $60 for ILCC members. For more information call 312-409-1757. Films marked with an * are highly recommended; unless otherwise noted, all films are in Spanish with subtitles.
Ambitious but unwieldy, this black comedy from Colombia (2001, 93 min.) is the warped odyssey of an idealistic actor (Robinson Diaz) with a hit TV series who comes unhinged and begins to disappear into his role: Simon Bolivar, the 19th-century revolutionary who drove the Spanish from Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador. After storming off the set, the delusional star kidnaps the president and sails up the Orinoco River, only to encounter some Marxist guerrillas who want in on the act. Director Jorge Ali Triana makes some trenchant observations about the power of mass media (“You take care of the theater, I’ll take care of the politics,” Bolivar tells the president), but his film–like its obvious antecedent, Sidney Lumet’s Network–has a tough time striking a balance between farce and serious drama. (JJ) Showing as part of the opening-night gala; tickets are $65, $50 for ILCC members. (Biograph, 6:30)
Rosa la China
A tedious if mainly well-acted drama (2002, 93 min.) about the forced gaiety that ensues when a young man who’s been living in Canada briefly returns to his family and former girlfriend in Argentina. Writer-director Ana Katz (who plays one of the young man’s sisters) must have had more on her mind than the threadbare plot indicates, but whatever it was, it’s obscured by her stagy direction and Diego De Paula’s opaque performance as the hero. (JR) Also on the program: Erwin Neumaier and Erick Beltran’s Mexican short Fosfenos (2002, 3 min.). (Biograph, 9:00)
SATURDAY, APRIL 5
El bruto
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Florence Jaugey gave young offenders in a Nicaraguan penitentiary video cameras and a brief tutorial in their operation; this 2001 documentary comprises footage they shot. The framing device of following the prisoners as they make their own movie (alternately interviewing and being interviewed) packs a certain postmodern punch, and there are some genuinely powerful moments: a tearful reunion of mother and son, a dry-eyed firsthand account of a prison murder, matter-of-fact descriptions of prison gang life. But more often than not the video replicates the dreary routine of life behind bars. The topic is fascinating but the net effect is soporific. 82 min. (Jack Helbig) Also on the program: Loreto Quijada’s Chilean short Santiago, the Project (2002, 12 min.). (Facets Cinematheque, 5:00)
