Martínez by Lorena Padilla
The 66th edition of the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM Festival) started yesterday and runs through April 23, 2023 screening several U.S. Latinx and Latin American selections in their different sections.
Having its California premiere in the New Directors competition is the Mexican comedy Martínez by Lorena Padilla. The satirical take on workplace culture, human resources informs elderly employee Martinez (Francisco Reyes, A Fantastic Woman) that it is time for him to retire—but first he must train his replacement. To add to his troubles, his next-door neighbor passes away, bequeathing him her diary along with other personal items. A Chilean who has lived in Mexico for 40 years, Martínez befriends the young man taking his job, who inspires him to explore life outside himself. As he rummages through his neighbor’s things, Martínez examines his existence and begins to realize that perhaps the end of his career is a new beginning, leading to reinvigoration and joy.
Four Latin American films—from Costa Rica, Cuba, Mexico, and Nicaragua—are vying for this year’s Cine Latino Award, the competitive section co-presented by Cinema Tropical: Daughter of Rage / La hija de todas las rabias by Laura Baumeister, I Have Electric Dreams / Tengo sueños eléctricos by Valentina Maurel, Love & Mathematics / Amor y matemáticas by Claudia Sainte-Luce, and Vicenta B. by Carlos Lechuga.
“If you want something, you have to fight for it,” 11-year-old Maria’s (Ara Alenjandra Medal) mother Lilibeth tells her in Baumeister’s powerful debut. The pair eke out a living out selling items scavenged from the massive landfill abutting their shack, a unique bond tethering them to one another and an inner wildness. But when one of Lilibeth’s deals goes sideways during a time of social unrest, she leaves Maria in the care of strangers—little realizing how her parenting has resonated with her daughter who pushes against all obstacles in her determination to reunite with her mother. Through striking cinematography, poetic imagery, and Medal’s touching performance, Daughter of Rage follows María as she harnesses the power of her inventive mind in her quest to find some semblance of home.
Powered by dreamy cinematography, I Have Electric Dreams follows teenage Eva as she grapples with the emotions and realities of her parents’ split. She lives with her mother and younger sister but would rather reside with her estranged artist father. After much angst and rebellion, Eva gets her wish, only to be left largely unsupervised by her distant dad. Through her tumultuous interactions with her neglectful parent and a sexual relationship with one of his friends, Eva comes of age. Newcomer Daniela Marín Navarro makes an indelible debut with her complex portrayal of a young woman who learns many hard lessons on her journey to adulthood.
Love & Mathematics follows Billy (Roberto Quijano), once a teen pop star and now in his mid-30s who has crashed back down to earth, trapped in the velvet cage of a boring, upper-middle-class life. A stay-at-home dad, he spends his days lounging around and caring for his newborn baby while his wife flourishes in a successful corporate career. Change arrives with new neighbor Monica, a mega-fan of Billy’s boy band who had a huge crush on him back in the day. Through the pair’s comedic and awkward exchanges, Billy regains his confidence and dives back into his music, starting with finishing his romantic ballad, “Love and Mathematics.” Quijano won the best actor award for his performance at the Havana Film Festival New York.
Set amongst the vibrant landscape of Cuba, Vicenta B is the story of a gifted clairvoyant who uses her ability to connect to her ancestors to foresee the future. When her beloved son leaves home in search of employment abroad, the heartbreak of their separation drives Vicenta into an identity crisis as she worries about her boy. While she can foretell others’ future, her own remains cloudy as she struggles with her ancestors to understand the journey ahead for her son. She rediscovers her connection to the island and recovers her own sense of well-being as she learns to cope with what she cannot control.
Emily Cohen Ibañez and Débora Souza Silva’s Sol in the Garden, about a formerly incarcerated woman who catches the sun as she nourishes a garden with her new community, will have its world premiere in the Bay Area Short Films section of the festival.
Three films of Latinx and Latin American production will participate in the GGA Documentary Competition: the Colombian documentary La Bonga by Sebastián Pinzón Silva and Canela Reyes, Hummingbirds by Latina directors Estefanía “Beba” Contreras and Silvia Del Carmen Castaños, and the South African film Milisuthando by Milisuthando Bongela, a Colombian co-production.
With Colombia’s right-wing paramilitary forces closing in, the Afro-Colombian inhabitants of La Bonga fled their farming community, leaving the jungle to reclaim it. Sebastian Pinzón Silva and Canela Reyes’s lyrical debut navigates the sticky terrains of memory, history, and home as it documents the Bongueros’ return 20 years later to what was once their village. Guided by a strong matriarch, the erstwhile townspeople and their descendants navigate the wilderness, remembering the hamlet and reconstructing it. As the families prepare to celebrate this bittersweet homecoming, they fight being written off by history along with the all-engulfing ferocity of nature.
During a stifling summer in Laredo, Texas, two adolescents stargaze from a car’s rooftop, share worries that they could be deported, and fret over their futures while rebelling against present circumstances. Directors Contreras and Castaños spotlight their own lives, revealing the poetry and passion that fire young spirits in a world that wants to control their bodies and their citizenship. As their state moves towards draconian anti-abortion legislation, Beba and Silvia fight back with their words and their Sharpie pens. Goofy and rebellious in equal amounts, the film tenderly centers this soulful friendship as the pair acknowledge their feelings for one another in poems, songs, and the headlong sense of adventure their bond brings to daily living.
The Costa Rican production Addresses / Direcciones by María Luisa Santos and Carlo Nasisse, set in San José, a city with no street addresses, a deep dive into the history of memory and place, will screen in the Documentary Short Film program.
Four Latinx and Latin American short films will screen in SFFILM Festival’s Family Films section: The Ecuadorean short film Dipsas Speaks by Craig Leon, in which wildlife sounds a warning message of deforestation in their fragile Amazon ecosystem; in the animated feature Kintsugi by Paraguayan-American director Cleto Acosta-McKillop, when a flashy neighbor moves next door, a restaurant’s lucky cat is faced with insecurities; the Latinx short El Moño by Luis Fernando Puente and Lizde Arias follows Andrea, as she learns of generational family magic that helps her find lost objects in unexpected ways; and the charming short With a Wool Ball by Belén Ricardes is stop-motion musical of an Argentinian winter full of ponchos, animal friends, and warm stories.
Winner of the 2023 Sundance Short Film Jury Award for International Fiction, The Kidnapping of the Bride by German-Argentine director Sophia Mocorrea will screen in the Mid-Length Film section of the festival. The warm and subtle look at the place of tradition follows Luisa and Fred, who are getting married, and all of the in-laws are in town. Love and good humor gets them through the preparations for the ceremony that will bridge Luisa’s Argentinian family and Fred’s German kin, but they can’t escape all of their parents’ expectations–or the Teutonic tradition of the bride’s abduction from her own wedding.
Mancha by Latina director Nicole Mejia, about a mother that seeks to protect her daughter from the stain that curses her family’s women, will screen in the Narrative Short Film section; the same as the Chilean-French short film The Melting Creatures by Diego Céspedes, set in a secluded community hiding from the sun, in which a trans woman and her daughter visit her ex-lover.
