Last year, we took our first baby steps towards a complete return to the theaters. This year, we are returning to a fully in-person festival. Our Opening and Closing Night galas are back, we are once again showing each film twice and we have organized a number of community events and in-person student screenings during the Festival’s ten-day run. And, we are receiving
double the number of visiting filmmakers.
The Festival has been a fully digital operation these past three years. And yet, there is nothing like having a schedule in your hands to consult; they are as much of a conversation starter as the movies programmed. Which is why we were so happy to bring them back.
That doesn’t mean that we have turned our backs to the virtual world. To mark this complete return to the theaters, we have launched a new, improved and better looking website where users will have easier access to film information and tickets. They can also download the print schedule. Talk about coming full circle.
“Our next Festival needs to be even better than the last one” has been our mantra for 39 years and that wouldn’t be possible without a great
roster of films. Since the turn of the century, the Pan-Latino diaspora has been delivering an abundance of riches.
Our 51 features and 35 shorts provide an excellent overview of current trends in Iberoamerican cinema. They include international film festival favorites (I Have Electric Dreams, Eami), genre fare (Jupía, 12 Ways to Kill Your Neighbor), and experimental
works (Ironland, Three Cinematheques). Our program explores the Indigenous and Afro-Latino experiences (Amigo, Roza), a feature of the Festival since its early days.
I have always been blessed to receive the support of so many people and institutions who still believe in the role our Festival, the International Latino Cultural Center of Chicago, and the arts play in our society. So, to our funders and sponsors, volunteers, staff, filmmakers, the Film Selection Committee members, our board of directors and, most important of all, you… THANK YOU!
The schedule you hold in your hands is the result of months of work…. The Festival is no longer ours: it is now YOUR Festival to enjoy.
Pepe Vargas
Founder & Executive Director
International Latino Cultural Center of Chicago
For 39 years the Chicago Latino Film Festival has celebrated the diversity in Latino Film and the artists that create and work in motion pictures, celebrating and lending a voice to Latino filmmakers that show us different viewpoints of the international Latino culture around the world.
