On Friday, Oct. 13, Lawrence’s tenth annual Latin American and Spanish Film Festival officially commenced. The series, organized by Professor of Spanish Rosa Tapia and Instructor of Spanish Celia Herrera, began in 2012 and has been celebrated every year since with the exception of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Although the bulk of it takes place after the official end of Hispanic Heritage Month, the film festival is a continuation of the conversations that Tapia hoped the month inspired. To her, Hispanic Heritage Month is a celebration, but also an opportunity to engage in dialogues about what being Hispanic and Latine means to different communities under the umbrella terms. As a Spaniard, she recognizes the history of conquest and colonization affiliated with Hispanic history, and therefore believes the month creates a space to more openly discuss its complexities.
“My own role in the conversation is complex and delicate,” Tapia acknowledged. “But I do try to be very self-aware of what I am bringing to the conversation – or not – in that regard.”
Hispanic Heritage Month was celebrated from Friday, Sept. 15 to Sunday, Oct. 15, as opposed to the film festival’s Thursday, Oct. 26 to Sunday, Oct. 29 time frame. However, the first title shown overlapped with the month as a standalone on Friday, Oct 13. This title was Christopher Zalla’s critically acclaimed “Radical” (2023), a Mexican film based on a true story and winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s Audience Award. According to Tapia, Lawrence was able to get in contact with the producers and secure its U.S. premiere at the university before its official U.S. theatrical release.
The official beginning of the Latin American and Spanish Film Festival is on Thursday, Oct. 26 and will be heralded in with films from Chile and Argentina – Manuela Martelli’s 2022 “Chile ‘76” at 4:30 p.m. and Santiago Mitre’s 2022 “Argentina, 1985” at 8:00 p.m. respectively — on their shift in the 1970’s from dictatorship to democracy. Before “Chile ‘76” is shown, Professor Emerita of Spanish and Italian Patricia Vilches will deliver a speech about the country’s political history, the coup against President Salvador Allende in 1973 and the ramifications of the coup fifty years later in a speech titled “Between Dictatorship and Democracy: Chile, 50 Years After the Coup.”
Tapia and Herrera partnered with Director of the Diversity and Intercultural Center Lissette Cruz-Jiménez to plan an event on Friday, Oct. 27, Noche de Gala, creating a combined event for one of the days of the festival. The daylong event will begin with a showing of a film from Puerto Rico, Glorimar Marrero Sánchez’s 2023 “La Pecera” (“The Fishbowl”), followed by a musical interlude performed by Lawrence students, guest speaker Ariela Rosa discussing the Latine identity and finally a 7:00 p.m. fiesta-style gala complete with music, dancing and more.
“Thematically, it makes a lot of sense to partner with other events or people who are also celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month or creating awareness about it or contributing to the conversation about its meaning,” Tapia explained.
On Saturday, Oct. 28, two Mexican films will be shown. The first of these will be Enrique M. Rizo’s 2022 “Un Lugar Llamado Música” (“A Place Called Music”) at 5:00 p.m., which will feature a Q&A session with Rizo, and the second will be the U.S. premiere of Amat Escalante’s 2023 “Perdidos en la Noche” (“Lost in the Night”) at 8:00 p.m.
The festival will conclude on Sunday, Oct. 29 with a 2:00 p.m. matinee of a 2022 Spanish film by Rodrigo Sorogoyen “As Bestas” (“The Beasts”).
Tapia encourages all Lawrentians to engage in the month’s events, pointing to the rich cultural history of Hispanic and Latine people internationally, domestically and locally. Wisconsin in particular, she said, has a 500-year Hispanic history that she believes few people know of. Because of this, she said the month and the film festival are excellent opportunities for education through celebration and entertainment.
“It’s interesting,” Tapia mused. “A bunch of different organizations and people are coming together for [Hispanic Heritage Month]. It’s kind of loose in that regard, but at the same time, it’s very organic…all of us…[highlighting] different facets of what it means to be a part of the Hispanic or Latine experience.”