Anchor intro: The San Diego Latino Film Festival expands its programming with a new mini-festival called Éxitos Del Cine Latino. KPBS arts reporter Beth Accomando says the festival kicks off this Friday with an eclectic collection of films. No matter how many films a festival shows, it’s never enough. There’s always a title left out because of space or print availability. The San Diego Latino Film Festival’s exhibitions coordinator Glenn Heath says the remedy is a mid-year event that showcases Latino Cinema in a complex and engaging way with films you don’t normally find at a multiplex. GLENN HEATH: The March festival is gigantic. It’s over a 160 films this festival, Exitos, is 13 movies. So we have the opportunity to really create this diverse microcosm of a programming schedule where different countries, different genres are represented. And I think we do have the ability to maybe be more risky because we’re able to focus our marketing campaign, our programming campaign on fewer films. Like Mexico’s “Halley” that offers a fresh take on the living dead, or Argentina’s “Viola” that loosely adapts Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.” There’s also a tribute to late Chilean director Raoul Ruiz with a screening of his final film, “The Night Across the Street.” Of course Heath has his favorites. GLENN HEATH: One of may favorites is “Despues de Lucia.” It’s from Mexico, it was the Academy Award submission from Mexico last year, it’s this very sobering look at bullying in Mexico, the modern day epidemic that’s going on down there. Éxitos Del Cine Latino runs Friday through August 29 at the Digiplex Mission Valley and Digital Gym Cinema.
The San Diego Latino Film Festival expands its programming with a new mini-festival called Éxitos Del Cine Latino. The festival kicks off this Friday with an eclectic collection of films.
No matter how many films a festival shows, it’s never enough. There’s always a title left out because of lack of space or print availability.
"The purpose behind Éxitos," said San Diego Latino Film Festival’s exhibitions coordinator Glenn Heath, "is to screen Latino films; give them premieres in San Diego that weren’t included in that original March film festival. So we have this big event in March, but we have all these great titles for whatever reason fall through the cracks, and later in the year there’s an opportunity to screen them. So we wanted to have an event that really reminded our patrons, our media sponsors, our corporate sponsors of the excitement of the festival and really try to create this mid-year event that acts as a way for people to be re-engaged with the festival atmosphere."
So Éxitos is a mid-year event that showcases Latino cinema in a complex and engaging way with films you don’t normally find at a multiplex.
"I think it’s always a challenge to try and reinvent yourself, which is in one sense what we are doing with Éxitos is we’re trying to show our audience and new audiences that we are constantly trying to be innovative," Heath said.
Heath said the mid-year event is worth the hard work because it is important for the community to see Latinos represented on screen.
"The March festival is gigantic," he said. "It’s over a 160 films this festival, Éxitos, is 13 movies. So we have the opportunity to really create this diverse microcosm of a programming schedule where different countries, different genres are represented. And I think we do have the ability to maybe be more risky because we’re able to focus our marketing campaign, our programming campaign on fewer films."
Like Mexico’s “Halley” that offers a fresh take on the living dead, or Argentina’s “Viola” that loosely adapts Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.” There’s also a tribute to late Chilean director Raoul Ruiz with a screening of his final film, “The Night Across the Street.” Of course Heath has his favorites.
"One of may favorites is 'Despues de Lucia,'" he said. "It’s from Mexico. It was the Academy Award submission from Mexico last year. It’s this very sobering look at bullying in Mexico, the modern day epidemic that’s going on down there.
Éxitos Del Cine Latino runs Friday through August 29 at the Digiplex Mission Valley and Digital Gym Cinema.
