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Charlotte’s Independent Picture House will screen a series of award-winning and hard-to-find Latin American films starting later this month.
That’s thanks in large part to Giovanna Torres, founder of Cine Casual — or “Casual Cinema” — now entering its third edition.
“It's ‘casual’ because you don't need to have a film degree to talk about film,” Torres said. “I just love seeing everyone's perspectives because everyone has such a different life experience. And when they watch a film, their perspectives are so different.”
And, Torres said, the fear of missing out (FOMO, to those who don’t know), is something people should consider.
“FOMO is real with our series,” she said. “Most of these films, you won't be able to catch on Netflix or any other streaming platform.”
The difficulty of finding these films, often due to limited circulation, is one reason Torres worked to bring them to Charlotte. Her closest Latin American-cinema fix had been in Winston-Salem.
“We see it as a way to make space in the Charlotte community to not just generate an audience for the stuff that's being produced in Latin America, which is of amazing quality, but to also make space to celebrate the Latinx community in Charlotte,” she said.
Torres was born and raised in Puerto Rico. But she wasn’t exposed to Latin American cinema until she moved to the U.S. for college. A course on Latin American history through film inspired her.
“That's when I fell in love with it. I was like, where was this my whole life?” she said. “Because the content is just out of this world, it's so real. It's so arriesgado.”
In other words, Latin American film takes risks — and that’s reflected in this year’s schedule:
- The series begins Friday, Aug. 25 with a Brazilian sci-fi/drama, “Medida Provisória” ("Executive Order"), set in a near-future, dystopian Brazil. After the president of the country signs an executive order to send all Brazilians of African descent to Africa, chaos ensues and an underground resistance movement takes form. The film will be followed by a discussion and a drum circle.
- From there, the festival offers a line-up of films from Chile, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Guatemala and Colombia, as well as a showcase of locally produced short films.
- All films and discussions will be hosted at The Independent Picture House — with one exception. Puerto Rican film "La Pecera" ("The Fishbowl") will have a special, free screening on Wednesday, Aug. 30, at the Mint Museum in uptown.
The festival wraps up with a night of film and music on Sept. 16, the first day of Hispanic Heritage Month, featuring Afro-Venezuelan filmmaker Beni Marquez.
The films are in Spanish, Portuguese or an Indigenous language, and all have English subtitles. Tickets are $10 each or $55 for a full-access pass.
