VLAFF 2019
An incomplete list of films shown at the 17th Vancouver Latin American Film Festival from Aug 22 to Sep 4, 2019.
Missing Films:
Cantadoras: Musical Memories of Life and Death in Colombia
Missing Shorts:
Missing Films:
Cantadoras: Musical Memories of Life and Death in Colombia
Missing Shorts:
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34 titles
- DirectorMarta Rodríguez
- DirectorKenya MarquezStarsJohana Fragoso BlendlEnrique ArreolaMónica Del CarmenAfter getting out of jail where she learned how to take care of the sick, Alma, an albino woman, decides to recover something much more important than her own freedom. In order to do so, Alma is forced to take care of Clemente (a hypochondriac with an OCD to avoid a sudden death) at night. The relationship between them will transit from suspicion and fear to tenderness and love.
- DirectorAntonella SudasassiStarsDaniela ValencianoLeynar GomezIsabella MoscosoIsa has more than enough on her plate with two children and the household, which she manages on her own. When her husband persists with his wish for a third child, she realizes that something must change.
- DirectorCristina GallegoCiro GuerraStarsCarmiña MartínezJosé AcostaNatalia ReyesDuring the marijuana bonanza, a violent decade that saw the origins of drug trafficking in Colombia, Rapayet and his indigenous family get involved in a war to control the business that ends up destroying their lives and their culture.
- DirectorJulio Hernández CordónStarsÁngel Rafael YanezWallace PereydaÁngel Leonel CorralIn a timeless México where women are disappearing, a girl called Huck wears a mask to hide her gender. She helps her dad, a tormented addict, to take care of an abandoned baseball camp where the narcos gather to play. The father tries to protect her as he can. With the help of her friends, a group of lost boys who have the power of camouflaging themselves in the windy desert, Huck has to fight to overcome her reality and to defeat the local capo.
- DirectorCatherine GundDaresha KyiStarsEugenia LeónJesusa RodríguezTania LibertadThe life of pioneering singer Chavela Vargas, from her birth in Costa Rica in 1919 to her death in Mexico in 2012.
- DirectorPaz FábregaStarsMonserrat FernándezLil Quesada MorúaLuis Carlos BogantesOn New Year's holidays, Mariana (21) and Rodrigo (30) drive to the coast where he has to sell a property. There, they find Karina (7), late at night and in the middle of nowhere. She tells then she ran away from home.
- DirectorTelmo EsnalStarsJoseba AstarbeJosu GarateAmaia IrigoyenAfter a hard working day in the field, the heavens open and a ferocious storm breaks out. When the rain eases off, life sprouts from the previously barren soil. A piece of fruit grows, ripens on the tree after surviving the scourge of the blight and goes on to turn into a juicy green apple from which cider is nicely produced. Then it is time to celebrate the bumper harvest and drink a toast to love.
- DirectorAndrea BussmannStarsVictor PueyoFernando RenjifoZiad ChakarounOn the Oaxacan coast of Mexico, rumblings of previous times are never far from the surface. Tales of shapeshifting, telepathy and dealings with the Devil are embedded in the colonization and enslavement of the Americas. Characters from the Faust legend mingle with the inhabitants, while attempting to colonize and control nature through a seemingly never-ending building project. Through literature, myth and local entanglements, the frontier between reality and fiction, and the seen and unseen, no longer apply.
- DirectorEugenio CanevariStarsStella Maris SantoValeria BalleriniFrancisco DominguezThe last moments in the life of an ALS patient.
- DirectorBani KhoshnoudiStarsArash MarandiEdwarda GurrolaLuis AlbertiRamin flees from persecution in Iran and ends up living in the limbo of exile, far from everything he knows, in the tropical port town of Veracruz, Mexico.
- DirectorAlejandra Márquez AbellaStarsIlse SalasFlavio MedinaCassandra CiangherottiA well-to-do socialite and her husband must wrestle with the impact of Mexico's 1982 economic crisis.
- DirectorMarcelo MartinessiStarsNorma CodasMargarita IrunAna BrunMarcelo Martinessi's stunning debut The Heiresses is an immersive and emotionally compelling look into the lives of the privileged, through the tribulations of a hesitant woman in quiet crisis.
- DirectorCristina IbarraAlex RiveraStarsMohammad AbdollahiMaynor AlvaradoRoman ArabiaA rag-tag group of undocumented youth - Dreamers - deliberately get detained by Border Patrol in order to infiltrate a shadowy, for-profit detention center.
- DirectorJulio Hernández CordónStarsAdriana AlvarezNatalia AriasÁlvaro MarencoA brightly shot carefree movie where problems and reality are kept just on the fringe of the storyline. Two best friends are having fun riding their bikes in San Jose. When they can pick out an old car from one of the friends family lot they are in for a nasty surprise. However as adolescents do they deal with the situation by having more fun with their friends. Meanwhile they turn one of the old cars into an Uber taxi.
- DirectorGustavo PizziStarsKarine TelesOtávio MüllerAdriana EstevesIrene has only a few days to surpass the anxiety and discover a new strength before sending her eldest son away to the world.
- DirectorEva VillaseñorMiguel traces his way trying to survive. His reality becomes increasingly labyrinthine until he must eventually face up to his own being. His complex behavior with a repressive society, an invasion of confused ideas make this documentary a piece about the current human complexity in a Mexico dominated by violence.
- DirectorOscar Sánchez SaldañaStarsNataly AuresGlicerio ReynosoCarlos SolanoFour villagers organize a festival in honor of the town's patron saint to end the pain caused by the disappearance of several of their relatives. The villagers believe that if the Patron saint is pleased, the town will be able to end their years of mourning. The four villagers overcome many problems to organize a brilliant celebration, which will conclude with the symbolic burial of all the missing relatives. However, when one of the four has a terrible accident, they take this as a bad omen and a sign that the patron saint may not want to calm their sorrows at all.
- DirectorRodrigo PatinoStarsFernando Arze EchalarCristian MercadoPablo EcharriTrying to save his son, an alcoholic bus driver gets involved in a human trafficking case.
- DirectorAlonso RuizpalaciosStarsGael García BernalLeonardo OrtizgrisAlfredo CastroIn 1985, a group of criminals mock the security of the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City to extract 140 pre-Hispanic pieces from their showcases.
- DirectorGastón DupratStarsAndrea AcattoLucas ArandaRaúl ArévaloArturo is an unscrupulous art dealer and Renzo his socially-awkward painter and longtime friend. Willing to risk it all, they develop an extreme and ludicrous plan to save themselves.
- DirectorAldemar MatiasJenniffer is a young athlete who questions her commitment to the Cuban national athletics team. Her mother Marbelis rules a health care facility in Havana with an iron fist. When her younger brother wants to leave the country, Jenniffer's doubts get bigger and bigger. This intimate and sensitive family chronicle shows a teenager in a country with an uncertain future.
- DirectorJuan CáceresStarsSteevens BenjaminAlfredo CastroBlanca LewinAfter a fight with his boss, Steevens, a young Haitian immigrant in Santiago, Chile, loses his job and is repudiated by the entire community.
- DirectorKatherine JerkovicStarsArlen Aguayo StewartGloria DemassiMathias PerdigónDriven by childhood memories and the hope of a re-encounter, Sarah visits her paternal grandmother in her village in Uruguay. She takes long to understand the prevailing unease - But she is soon faced with the gap between her fantasy regarding the place of origin and that village of old people forgotten by Modernity where the heat is overwhelming and the days seem to last forever.
- DirectorBenjamín NaishtatStarsDarío GrandinettiAndrea FrigerioAlfredo CastroIn Argentina pre-coup d'etat, a successful lawyer starts to feel against the ropes when a secret of the past threatens his present.
- DirectorGwaai EdenshawHelen Haig-BrownStarsWilly RussAdeana YoungBrandon KallioWhen a man accidentally causes the death of the son of his best friend, the man is wracked by grief and runs off into the woods.
- DirectorBeatriz SeignerStarsMarleyda SotoEnrique DiazMaría Paula Tabares PeñaNuria, 12, Fabio, 9, and their mother arrive on a small island in the middle of the Amazon, bordering Brazil, Colombia and Peru. They fled the Colombian armed conflict, in which their father disappeared. One day, he mysteriously reappears in their new home.
- DirectorAlexandre MorattoStarsChristian MalheirosTales OrdakjiJayme RodriguesAfter his mother's sudden death, Socrates, a 15-year-old living on the margins of São Paulo's coast, must survive on his own while coming to terms with his grief.
- DirectorMaria TorresStarsHoze MeléndezLeonardo OrtizgrisMarcela GuiradoLeo promises his girlfriend, Fer to spend the day with her brother, Tomás. But he ends up taking him to a wedding where he'll play for a big shot producer. They'll discover how special is Tomás, even when everything goes wrong.
- DirectorAlvaro Torres CrespoEven though the Government expelled them from their lands in the name of ecologic preservation 40 years ago, a group of panners keep searching the rivers for gold, in Costa Rica's jungle. Their living as modern pariahs shows their fight for survivance, and questions the country's conservationist fame.
- DirectorMaricarmen MerinoFollowing her father's death, Maricarmen embarks on a journey to find and understand him beyond his absence.
- DirectorJoaquín CociñaCristóbal LeónStarsAmalia KassaiRainer KrauseKarina HylandTells the story of Maria, a young woman who takes refuge in a house in southern Chile after escaping from a German colony.
- DirectorPatricia OrtegaStarsLucía BedoyaBelkis AvilladaresMaría Elena DuqueA young woman discovers she was submitted to several surgeries to correct her intersexual body as a baby. She has to find her own self outside gender binaries.
- DirectorLuis OrtegaStarsLorenzo FerroCecilia RothLuis GneccoThe angelic face of Carlos, a 17-year-old teenager, hides a dark facet of robberies, lies and murders.