Coinciding with Hispanic Heritage Month, September brings ten Latinx and Latin American virtual film festivals offering hundreds of recent films to American audiences. Some of the film selections are are available to stream across the country, while others are geoblocked to the festival’s state boundaries. In addition to the online screening, some of these events are also presenting outdoor screenings, plus conversations with the guest directors and panels.
Check them out!
HOLA MEXICO FILM FESTIVAL
September 11 - 20
The 12th annual edition of the largest Mexican film festival outside of Mexico, Hola México Film Festival, will make its virtual debut exclusively via the Spanish-language premium streaming service Pantaya. The festival will give viewers an opportunity to see some of the best films that have recently come out of México and serve as a reminder of how much Mexican cinema has grown in the past several decades. In keeping with tradition, the festival will feature 20 films kicking off with Chicuarotes from renowned Mexican actor, director, and producer Gael Garcia Bernal.
NEW YORK LATINO FILM FESTIVAL
September 14 - 20
The New York Latino Film Festival (NYLFF), the premier Urban Latino film event in the country, returns this September with drive-in/in-person experiences as well as virtual options. Originally founded in 1999, NYLFF was created to build audiences for Latino cinema, support the film community and foster relationships with Latino talent.
The festival will kick off with the 21st edition with Habla Now, the fifteenth installment of HBO Latino’s award-winning Habla series by director and series creator, Alberto Ferreras. Festival highlights include the New York City premiere of Charm City Kings by Angel Manuel Soto and Birth Wars by Janet Jarman.
GRAND RAPIDS LATIN AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL
September 15 - October 15
The Grand Rapids Latin American Film Festival (GRLAFF) celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. The online GRLAFF 2020 will take over the screens during one month, from September 15 to October 15, 2020, which coincides with National Hispanic Heritage Month. Audiences will also enjoy eight feature-length films from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru, and four short films from Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico that will be shown together as a series. As always, the festival is free.
GRLAFF 2020 will open with The Unafraid, a 2018 documentary that follows the lives of three DACA recipients in Georgia, a state where they are banned from attending the top five public universities and from receiving in-state tuition at any public college. After the online debut, we will host a virtual panel discussion with education researchers and Latinx students.
The Film Lab in collaboration with Cinema Lamont and a/perture cinema present the 2020 virtual edition of Cine Mexico Now. Featuring some of the best in contemporary Mexican cinema, this year’s program runs from September 15 – October 13 in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, with a new film available to stream each week.
Films include recent selections from the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, including Fernanda Valadez’s Identifying Features / Sin señas particulares, as well as a free program of 6 short films! All Cine Mexico selections are available in Spanish with English subtitles.
SAN DIEGO LATINO FILM FESTIVAL
September 17 - 27
Presented and produced by Media Arts Center San Diego, the reimagined virtual edition of the annual San Diego Latino Film Festival festival will take place this year September 17-27, 2020 via the Eventive online film festival platform. An eleven-day celebration of Latino cinema, arts and culture, the festival will present over 100+ films online from Latin America, the United States, and Spain as well as include live virtual Q&A sessions with filmmakers, and more.
Highlights of this year’s festival include the Mexican films Identifying Films / Sin señas particulares by Fernanda Valadez, and Summer White / Blanco de verano by Rodrigo Ruiz Patterson, and the Chilean film Spider / Araña by Andrés Wood.
CHICAGO LATINO FILM FESTIVAL
September 18 - 27
Produced by the International Latino Cultural Center of Chicago, the 36th edition of the Chicago Latino Film Festival will present 43 features and 38 shorts. The Festival will be working with Eventive, whose virtual screening platform has become, in the last few months, the leader in providing film festivals and independent films with a secure way to make these films available to a wider audience. All films will be geo-blocked to residents of the state of Illinois.
Some of the high profile titles participating in this year’s Festival include: Ema, Pablo Larraín’s exhilarating and incendiary drama about family and reggaetón starring Mariana Di Girolamo and Gael García Bernal (in his third collaboration with the Chilean director); Divine Love / Divino Amor, Gabriel Mascaro’s dystopian tale about a woman’s pursuit of motherhood in a Brazil ruled by a fundamentalist party that has a say on its citizens’ sex and family lives; and the anthology film Days of Light, which brings together six filmmakers from each Central American country to tell six different stories about the aftermath of a solar storm in the entire region.
BOSTON LATINO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
September 23 - 27
In this pandemic year, the Boston Latino International Film Festival (BLIFF) has partnered with Eventive to put our films, our filmmaker Q&As, and our Audience Award balloting all online. Since its inception in 2001, BLIFF has been committed to using the power of film to break stereotypes, bring cultures and communities together and reveal the complex issues that affect the Latinx community in the United States, Latin America and Spain.
The 2020 virtual edition of BLIFF will be presenting 12 feature films and five short film programs including the Ecuadorean film La Mala Noche by Gabriela Calvache, Stateless / Apátrida by Michéle Stephenson, and Landfall by Cecilia Aldarondo.
AFI LATIN AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL
September 25 - October 7
The American Film Institute (AFI) has announced today the full slate of films being presented online for the 31st edition of the 2020 AFI Latin American Film Festival, one of the largest and long-running showcases of Latin American cinema in the United States. This year's wide-ranging selection of 26 films from 20 countries, including seven U.S. premieres., spans international festival favorites and award winners, local box-office hits and dynamic debuts from a new generation of Latin American filmmakers. The majority of films in the festival will be available to view online from anywhere in the United States.
The festival will open with Pablo Larraín’s Ema, and closes with the U.S. premiere of Ecuadorian filmmaker Alfredo León León's provocative submarine-set thriller Submersible, starring Colombian actress Natalia Reyes. Other festival highlights include Academy Award-winning Argentine director Juan José Campanella's pitch-perfect black comedy The Weasels’ Tale, starring Graciela Borges and Oscar Martínez.
INFFINITO BRAZILIAN FILM FESTIVAL
September 26 - October 25
For the first time ever, the Inffinito Brazilian Film Festival will stream more than 100 Brazilian productions in U.S. territories, from Puerto Rico to Alaska. This is the first time in the United States that audiences beyond Miami and New York will have access to the best films made recently in Brazil and explore the country’s culture through the art of cinema from the comfort of their homes. The program includes fiction and documentary feature films produced and released in 2019/2020, as well as short films, indigenous filmmakers productions, past festival winners and black films, all with English subtitles.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the outdoor screenings, a trademark of Inffinito festivals, will take place in Miami on September 26 in drive-in format, following all safety guidelines. Starting in November, after the festival, the platform www.inff.online will launch a catalog of Brazilian films available via VOD (video on demand) by monthly subscription in the U.S.
ÍCARO NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL
September 28 - 30
This film festival dedicated to Central American cinema will be screening its 2020 edition to online audiences in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Texas. The lineup will be announced soon.
