Sister & Sister by Kattia G. Zúñiga
The SXSW Film Festival is back in full swing, running March 10-19, with in-person screenings in Austin, Texas, and with plenty of films from the U.S. Latinx diaspora and Latin America. The 37th edition of the famed film festival will screen films from Argentina, Brazil, Haiti, Colombia and Panama.
In the headliners section of the festival, dedicated to big profile films and red carpers will host the world premiere of two films by U.S. Latinx directors: Flamin’ Hot by Eva Longoria, and Story Ave by Aristotle Torres.
Flamin’ Hot is the story of Richard Montañez, the Frito Lay janitor who channeled his Mexican American heritage and upbringing to turn Flamin’ Hot Cheetos into a snack that disrupted the food industry and became a global phenomenon. In Story Ave—starring Asante Blackk, Luis Guzmán and Alex Hibbert—after running away from home, a teenage graffiti artist holds up an unsuspecting MTA worker in a robbery gone right that changes their lives forever.
Problemista by writer-director Julio Torres, a surreal adventure through the equally treacherous worlds of New York City and the U.S. Immigration system, will have its world premiere in the Narrative Feature Competition of the festival. The film tells the story of Alejandro (played by director Torres) is an aspiring toy designer from El Salvador, struggling to bring his unusual ideas to life in New York City. As time on his work visa runs out, a job assisting an erratic art-world outcast (played by Tilda Swinton) becomes his only hope to stay in the country and realize his dream.
Flamin’ Hot by Eva Longoria
You Were My First Boyfriend, the latest film by Latina director Cecilia Aldarondo (Landfall), co-directed by Sarah Enid Hagey, will have its world premiere in the Documentary Feature Competition of the festival. In this high school reunion movie turned inside out, filmmaker Aldarondo relives her tortured adolescence, wondering if she remembered it all wrong.
Four Latinx films will world premiere in the festival’s Narrative Spotlight sidebar: Hail Mary by Rosemary Rodriguez, If You Were the Last by Kristian Mercado, The Long Game by Julio Quintana, and Upon Entry by Alejandro Rojas and Juan Sebastián Vásquez. In Hail Mary, a young Belizean girl, Maria, finds herself mysteriously pregnant and trying to cross the US/Mexico border while outrunning a deadly virus, the Cartels, Border Patrol and the right-hand man of the Devil. This genre-bending retelling of the Mary and Joseph story begs the question—who are the real monsters?
In If You Were the Last , adrift in their broken-down space shuttle with little hope of rescue, a male and female astronaut argue over whether they’re better off spending their remaining days as friends or something more.
Based on a true story, The Long Game follows a group of Mexican-American high schoolers who, banned from playing at the club where they caddied, form their own golf team, build a one-hole course in the fields, and win the 1957 Texas State Championship against all odds.
Upon Entry, directed by Venezuela filmmakers Rojas and Vásquez, follow Diego, a Venezuelan urbanist, and Elena, a contemporary dancer from Barcelona, move to the United States with their approved visas to start a new life. Their intention is to boost their professional careers and start a family in 'the land of opportunities'. But upon entering Newark airport’s immigration area, they are taken to the secondary inspection room, where border officers will subject them to an unpleasant inspection process and a psychologically grueling interrogation. Over the next few hours, the fate of Elena, Diego and their dreams is called into question as the officers interviewing them try to discover whether the couple may have something to hide, thus jeopardizing their entry.
Three Latin American films, from Haiti, Brazili, and Panama, will screen in the Global section of SXSW: Kite Zo A by Kaveh Nabatian, My Drywall Cocoon by Caroline Fioratti, and Sister & Sister / Las hijas by Kattia G. Zúñiga.
Kite Zo A is a sensorial film about rituals in Haiti, from ancient to modern, made in collaboration with poets, dancers, musicians, fishermen, daredevil rollerbladers, and Vodou priests, set to poetry by Haitian author Wood-Jerry Gabriel. In the Brazilian film My Drywall Cocoon, Virginia’s death during her 17th birthday shakes up a luxurious building complex. For most residents, it’s a passing tragedy. For her mother and her friends, it is the beginning of a transformation: the crack in their drywall cocoon.
Kattia G. Zúñiga’s debut feature Sister & Sister is a heartfelt film about sisterhood, desires, jealousy, and youth in the never-ending tropical summer of Panama. The film follows two sisters, who travel from Costa Rica to Panama to look for their absent father. While dealing with friction that arises between them, they find space to explore their desires, new friendships, lovers, and skateboarding, on a journey toward emancipation where they discover the joy of the simple act of hanging out.
Having its U.S. premiere in the Visions sidebar of the festival—dedicated to showcase the work of filmmakers who are audacious, risk-taking artists in the new cinema landscape who defy traditional categorization in documentary and narrative filmmaking—is the Colombian film Anhell69 by Theo Montoya. The film explores the dreams, doubts and fears of an annihilated generation, and the struggle to carry on making cinema.
The Argentine film Chronicles of a Wandering Saint by Tomás Gómez Bustillo, world premiering in Visions, is set in a tiny rural village and follows Rita Lopez, a pious yet insatiably competitive woman, discovers that staging a miracle could be her ticket to sainthood.
Two films will have their North American premiere in the 24 Beats per Second section of the festival, Showcasing the sounds, culture and influence of music and musicians: Joan Baez I Am A Noise by Karen O’Connor, Miri Navasky, Maeve O’Boyle, in which facing the end of a 60-year career, legendary singer and activist of Mexican descend Joan Baez takes an honest look back and a deep look inward as she tries to make sense of her large, history-making life, and the personal struggles she’s kept private, until now; and the Colombian film Rebelión by José Luis Rugeles Gracia, which portrays a genius in the depths of his intimacy, the heartbeat of a soul tormented by that great love: music.
And lastly, two documentary films which had their world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival last January, will screen at SXSW in the Festival Favorites section: Going Varsity in Mariachi by Alejandra Vasquez and Sam Osborn, and Little Richard: I Am Everything by Latina director Lisa Cortes.
Going Varsity in Mariachi follows Edinburg North High School mariachi coach Abel Acuña and his band of musicians work through personal hardships and teenage distractions to rebuild their squad and reclaim their title as state champions, after a devastating year in the Rio Grande Valley. Cortes’s Little Richard: I Am Everything celebrates the revolutionary and deeply conflicted artist who navigated the minefields of race and sexuality as he spread the gospel of rock n’ roll.
