The 18th annual Chicago Latino Film Festival, presented by the International Latino Cultural Center of Chicago, runs Friday, April 5, through Thursday, April 18. Film and video screenings will be at the Biograph, 2433 N. Lincoln; DePaul Univ. Alliance for Latino Empowerment, 2320 N. Kenmore, room 154; Dominican Univ., 7900 W. Division, River Forest; Facets Cinematheque, 1517 W. Fullerton; Metzli Video Cinema, 1440 W. 18th St.; Northwestern Univ. Thorne Auditorium, 750 N. Lake Shore Dr.; Richard J. Daley College, 7500 S. Pulaski; the Three Penny; and Univ. of Illinois at Chicago, Lecture Center B2, 750 S. Halsted. Tickets for most programs are $9; for students, senior citizens, and disabled persons, $8; and for members of ILCC and the Illinois Arts Alliance, $7. 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.
The Flamenco Singer
Three shorts from Costa Rica: Hilda Hidalgo’s Stardust (44 min.) and La pasion de nuestra senora (17 min.), and a film Hidalgo directed with Felipe Cordero, Bajo el limpido azul de tu cielo (37 min.), all made in 2001. (Facets Cinematheque, 7:00)
- Pachito Rex: It’s Not Over Until It’s Over
In return for protection, a small-time thief in a Spanish jail promises to stick with a career criminal after they get out. Miguel Hermoso directed this 1983 feature, in Spanish with subtitles. 98 min. (Three Penny, 9:00)
SATURDAY, APRIL 6
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“I came . . . to track down ghosts,” says Lourdes Portillo at the outset of this video, less a documentary than an affecting elegy. In the last decade more than 200 young women have been raped and murdered in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez, with many also showing similar signs of mutilation. Portillo interviews several women who managed to escape and connects the terrible loss of life with the effects of globalization: the numerous maquiladoras attract women who leave their hometowns for a rootless and vulnerable existence. Among the suspects are drug traffickers, a local gang, a group of bus drivers, and the police, but the killings remain unsolved. 76 min. (FC) On the same program, Descensor (2000), an Ecuadoran short by Mauricio Samaniego. (Facets Cinematheque, 4:00)
