The Drexel Theater will be hosting the first ever Columbus Latino Film Festival October 24-25. The festival will feature five acclaimed Latin American films never before screened in Columbus.
“[The Latino Film Festival] is a good opportunity for anyone who wants to better understand Latin American cinema and culture,” Kevin Rouch, Drexel’s theater director, said. “I think it will also be an enjoyable experience for film buffs in general.”
The films are drawn from five different genres and four different nations to satisfy the preference of any filmgoer.
The festival will begin Saturday at 10 a.m. with the family drama Spare Parts (2015), which stars George Lopez and has dialogue in both English and Spanish. This movie will be followed by the Mexican dark-comedy Nosotros Los Nobles (The Noble Family, 2013) at 7 p.m. The Saturday showings will conclude with the cult classic El Mariachi (1993) at midnight.
Sunday will feature the Chilean film Machuca (2004) at 1 p.m. followed by the Uruguayan film El Baño del Papa (The Pope’s Toilet, 2009) at 4 p.m. The two films will be shown on original 35 mm, as digital versions are not available.
There will also be a discussion panel both days of the festival. The Saturday panel will discuss transnational Mexican film, while the Sunday panel will focus on dictatorship and precarity in Latin American culture.
The Columbus Latino Film Festival will be of interest for Capital University students interested in either film or Latin American culture. Students from all majors can also benefit from the panel discussions.
The Drexel partnered with Capital University to offer discounted student tickets.
“[Students] should take advantage of this festival. Latin American films are not something that are really prevalent in Columbus,” Stephanie Saunders, assistant professor of Spanish, said. “Plus, [the Drexel] is right across the street.”
Saunders has worked closely with Rouch, as well as faculty members from The Ohio State University and Ohio Wesleyan University, to bring the Latino Film Fest to the Drexel. They began collaborating earlier in the year to create a festival that focuses on Columbus’s growing Latin American population.
“The festival grew out of a desire to serve a severely underserved part of the population,” Rouch said. “We collaborated with the Columbus Board of Education to show Spare Parts last year, which really resonated with me, and I wanted to do something more.”
While it was originally designed to target Latino STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) students in the Columbus City School district, the showing of Spare Parts drew so much attention that the organizers saw the potential to create a new Latin American film themed festival.
Rouch and those he has worked with thus far are hoping to make the Columbus Latino Film Festival an annual event that will become a staple of the city.
“There is definitely room to grow, and in future years, we want to include Brazilian and Spanish films,” Rouch said. “We have also talked about incorporating the Lincoln Theater into the festival, if it becomes popular enough.”
Tickets are now available at www.drexel.net. Pricing is $5 for members, $7 for adults, and $3 for current Capital students with valid ID. The showing of Spare Parts has special reduced cost family film pricing. Tickets will also be available at the box office during the weekend of the festival.
