Presented in collaboration with Cinema Tropical
The annual San Francisco Film Festival (SFFILM) is the oldest running film festival in the Americas, since 1957. This year’s 66th SFFILM Festival will run from April 13th to the 23rd with a projected 25,000+ ticket holders attending film premieres, events, and parties all throughout downtown San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley. This year, the Cine Latino program of the festival showcases the diverse textures and cinematographic excellence of Latin American storytelling through four dazzling films.
Admission: General admission is $20. Students with ID and senior adults $19. SFFILM Members $16.
BELOVED TROPIC / QUERIDO TRÓPICO
A film by Ana Endara
(Panama/Colombia, 2024, 108 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Buy Tickets
Set in Panama City, this tender, atmospheric drama explores the evolving relationship between two lonely souls who form an unexpected bond. Ana María (Jenny Navarrete, The Other Son), a Colombian immigrant working as a home caregiver while harboring a secret, crosses paths with Mercedes (played by acclaimed Chilean actress Paulina García, known for her role in Gloria), a high-society woman struggling with encroaching dementia that is slowly erasing her identity and past. As they navigate the challenges of caregiving and the need for human connection, they learn to care for one another amid their personal struggles. Like the unpredictable Panamanian weather, this luminous drama shimmers with tropical textures and moments of quiet revelation.
Saturday, April 19, 6pm — Marina Theater; Sunday, April 20, 5:30pm — BAMPFA
HORIZON / HORIZONTE
A film by César Augusto Acevedo
(Colombia/France/Germany/Luxembourg/Chile, 2024, 125 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Buy Tickets
Decades-long conflict has claimed the lives of many in Colombia. This visually transcendent cinematic reverie explores a mother and son’s remorse as they reckon with their own transgressions during this period. A man visits his home village looking for his mom, Inés (Beloved Tropic’s Paulina García), but she doesn’t answer the door when he arrives and finds the family farm in disrepair. Over time, it’s revealed he was conscripted as a teenager into the government’s war against the guerrillas and, like Colombia itself, he needs a Truth and Reconciliation moment with his parent and community. Though Horizon is certainly a film about war and its attendant horrors, its sensibility is poetic and symbolic, more Tarkovsky than Tarantino. What César Augusto Acevedo achieves here is a profoundly moving film questioning whether one can forgive the unforgivable and, if so, what might be the mechanisms of that forgiveness.
Sunday, April 20, 8:00 — Premier Theater at One Letterman
MAD BILLS TO PAY (OR DESTINY, DILE QUE NO SOY MALO)
A film by Joel Alfonso Vargas
(USA, 2025, 99 min. In English and Spanish with English subtitles)
* Director Joel Vargas and Producer Paolo Maria Pedullà are expected to attend for a post-screening Q&A
Buy Tickets
Ricardo is an underemployed 19-year-old Dominican American who spends his days squabbling with his sister, being hollered at by his single mom, and (illegally) selling homemade alcoholic beverages called “nutties” on the beaches of the Bronx. A perpetual adolescent, he’s argumentative, defensive, and emotionally immature. When it’s revealed that he has gotten his underage girlfriend Destiny pregnant, he swears he’ll get his act together and be a good father if she moves in with them. However, as the film conveys through wry comedy and poignant insights, Ricardo’s path to manhood is a challenging one, fraught with moments of self-sabotage, emotional abuse of his family and Destiny, and belligerent behavior with bosses. With the characters shifting rapidly between English and Spanish, director Joel Alfonso Vargas has crafted a debut of great verisimilitude and empathy. The arguments between the characters feel unmistakably real, but so do the love and affection between them.
Saturday, April 19, 8:45 pm — Presidio Theatre (Chestnut St.)
RAINS OVER BABEL / LLUEVE SOBRE BABEL
A film by Gala del Sol
(Colombia/Spain/USA, 2025, 118 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
* Director Natalia Hermida Gutierrez (Gala del Sol) is expected to attend for a post-screening Q&A
Buy Tickets
A tropical, neon-lit bar filled with colorful figures, drag queens throwing shade, and the Grim Reaper herself sets the stage for an epic life-and-death adventure. The party never stops even as Babel’s owner nervously awaits news of his missing headliner—the show is the only thing standing between him and a loan shark’s retribution. Meanwhile a preacher’s son agonizes over his upcoming drag debut, an ex-soldier hopes the night will see the end of long servitude, and a young woman puts her own life on the line to save her ailing daughter. All find themselves journeying through a kind of hell on earth in this dark comic fantasy inspired by Dante’s Inferno. Blending Afrofuturism, surrealism, and steampunk, director Gala del Sol’s first feature is an ambitious feat soaring on vibrant cinematography, brilliant production design, a unique story, and a terrific ensemble of trans and queer characters.
Saturday, April 26, 6:30 pm — Marina Theatre
THE BEST MOTHER IN THE WORLD / A MELHOR MÃE DO MUNDO
A film by Anna Muylaert
(Brazil/Argentina, 2025, 106 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
Buy Tickets
Filmmaker Anna Muylaert is known for her empathetic portraits of Brazilian women working hard to provide for their families and improve their own personal circumstances. In her latest film, trash collector Gal (Shirley Cruz) flees an abusive relationship and takes to the streets with her two kids and the pushcart that is her livelihood. Pretending they are on a grand adventure in the streets of São Paulo rather than confront her children with the reality of being homeless, Gal attempts to bring a spirit of playfulness to a dire situation. Muylaert brings her characteristic compassion to the fore, heightened by Cruz’s textured performance that blends the levity of the family splashing around in a public fountain with the pathos of a middle-aged woman facing a difficult path ahead. Actor-musician Seu Jorge is similarly memorable as the brutish Leandro.
Saturday, April 19, 12:15 pm — Marina Theatre
THE HYPERBOREANS / LOS HIPERBÓREOS
A film by Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña
(Chile, 2024, 71 min. In Spanish and German with English subtitles)
Buy Tickets
When the negative of a film she starred in disappears, an actor embarks on a quest to recover it, in the process butting up against Chilean history and the legacy of fascist thinker Miguel Serrano. Antonia Giesen plays a version of herself as an actor and psychologist who initially stole the missing film’s idea from her patient Metalhead’s dreams. That dream state infects her search as she transforms into a cop contending with ailing parents, Metalhead’s declining state, Chile’s fascist history, and amazing things that live beneath Antarctica’s ice. Filmmakers Joaquín Cociña and Cristóbal León appear as twisted version of themselves in this fantastically surreal and virtuoso blend of live action, animation, puppetry, and practical effects.
Monday, April 21, 8:45 pm — Marina Theatre
THE LAST FIRST TIME / EL FIN DE LAS PRIMERAS VECES
A film by Rafael Ruiz Espejo
(Mexico, 2025, 76 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Buy Tickets
A teenager from a small Mexican town experiences firsts in love and sex during a trip away from home in writer/director Rafael Ruiz Espejo’s erotically charged first feature. At a college entrance exam in Guadalajara, Eduardo (Alejandro Quintana) meets city kid Mario (Carlos E. López Cervantes) and falls fast for the more sophisticated youth. Through the afternoon and a wild partying evening, Eduardo’s initial shyness gives way to wild abandon as he explores his sexuality. Quintana is excellent as a youngster taking his initial steps in the adult world in this cinematic coming-of-age story. The Last First Time is filled with angst and wonder as Eduardo finds himself through his drunken day in a new city.
Thursday, April 24, 8:30 pm — Marina Theatre
OLIVIA & THE CLOUDS / OLIVIA Y LAS NUBES
A film by Tomás Pichardo Espaillat
(Dominican Republic, 2024, 80 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Buy Tickets
A poetic and visually mesmerizing exploration of love, memory, and the fluidity of perception, Tomás Pichardo Espaillant’s experimental debut weaves together stop-motion animation, graphic sketching, and Claymation to deconstruct intimacy and the way we remember it. The film follows two couples who recount their relationships, their stories revealing how their experiences and memories differ in unexpected ways. As perspectives shift, this animated feature from the Dominican Republic questions how we construct narratives and how love, longing, desire, and personal truth shape our recollections. Beyond its compelling themes, the film is a sensory experience, blending live-action landscapes with striking 2D animation, surreal imagery, and an evocative soundscape. With collapsed timelines and abstract representations of yearning and loss, Olivia & the Clouds offers a dreamlike, immersive journey into the fragile nature of human connection.
Tuesday, April 22, 6:30 pm — Presidio Theatre (Chestnut St.)
HOLA, FRIDA!
A film by André Kadi and Karine Vézina
(Canada/France, 2024, 82 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
* Art/Animation Director Marie-Michelle Laflamme is expected to attend for a post-screening Q&A.
Buy Tickets
In dazzling, vibrant animation, we follow Frida, a curious, young child in her hometown of Coyoacán, Mexico, where her interest in art and creativity begins. Eagerly, she fills her first notebook with pages of colorful drawings and ideas. She spends her days playing with her sister, befriending a neighborhood dog, climbing trees, and running around the town. When polio leaves her bedridden, her dreams beckon as messages from the underworld and her inner spirit emerge to protect her. During these tough times, she finds solace in her imagination that brims with flowers, animals, and Zapotec and Mexican iconography. Little Frida does not back down from a challenge; once she recovers, she is back on the streets, an empowered young woman. This incredible film brings to vivid life the early childhood of world-renowned painter, artist, and feminist icon Frida Kahlo.
Saturday, April 19, 10pm — Marina Theatre
MAGIC FARM
A film by Amalia Ulman
(Argentina/USA, 2024, 93 min. In English and Spanish with English subtitles)
Buy Tickets
A hapless American reporting team descends on a small Argentinean town hoping to film a bunny ears-wearing musician who’s gone viral in this pointed satire about our woeful current media landscape. Working for a VICE-like outfit, the quintet arrives in remote San Cristobal with their “ugly American” attitudes at full volume—only to realize they’ve arrived at the wrong San Cristobal. With sly humor and a cast of quirky characters, writer/director Amalia Ulman (who also plays the crew’s cameraperson and interpreter) vitally points out that the relentless quest for “eyeballs” means that reporters frequently miss the real story. The terrific cast includes Chloë Sevigny, Alex Wolff, Joe Apollonio, and Simon Rex.
Sunday, April 20, 10am — Marina Theatre
THE DEVIL SMOKES / EL DIABLO FUMA
A film by Ernesto Martínez Bucio
(Mexico, 2025, 97 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
* Producer Carlos Hernández Vázquez is expected to attend for a post-screening Q&A.
Buy Tickets
Telling the story of five siblings fending for themselves in the wake of parental abandonment, this tender, well-crafted film won Berlinale’s inaugural Perspectives Award for fiction debut. It’s 1990 and Mexico eagerly awaits the second visit of Pope John Paul II while the Palacios López family wrangles with a different visitation, real or imagined. When the quintet’s mom disappears and five pairs of shoes appear out of nowhere, imaginative youngster Victor claims, “The Devil brought them.” Their unstable grandmother Romana, left behind as caretaker when the kids’ father goes to find his wife, encourages the thought that something malevolent is at work. In a tale replete with generational mental health issues, superstition, and religious belief, director Ernesto Martínez Bucio employs an impressively diverse style with home movie footage that fills in important backstory information and tight close-ups that reflect the increasingly claustrophobic tension in the household. Stellar performances from a very young cast of non-professionals further buoys the narrative.
Friday, April 18, 8:45pm — Marina Theatre
I DREAMED HIS NAME
A film by Ángela Carabalí
(Colombia, 2025, 86 min. In Spanish and Nasa Yuwe with English subtitles)
* Producer Carlos Hernández Vázquez is expected to attend for a post-screening Q&A.
Buy Tickets
Through powerful and poetic storytelling, I Dreamed His Name follows director Ángela Carabalí and her sister Juliana as they traverse Colombia’s Indigenous farmlands to investigate the disappearance of their father. Thirty years ago, the Afro-Latino farmer became a victim of the violence enveloping the country during a period of civil unrest. Now, as Ángela and Juliana probe their missing parent’s story, they encounter others who lost family members in similar circumstances. Gorgeous and intimate cinematography further illuminates the tenderness in each frame of Ángela Carabalí‘s moving documentary debut, a chronicle not only of loss but also of the love the sisters have for their family and for one another.
Saturday, April 26, 1:00 pm — Marina Theatre
Sunday, April 27, 2:30 pm — BAMPFA
MANAS
A film by Marianna Brennand
(Brazil/Portugal, 2024, 101 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
* Director Marianna Brennand is expected to attend for a post-screening Q&A.
Buy Tickets
Documentary director Marianna Brennand makes a stunning narrative debut with this sobering drama inspired by 10 years of research into the struggles of women living on Marajó Island in the Amazon rainforest. Thirteen-year-old Tielle’s life seems carefree, although she misses an older sister who abandoned rural life for Rio. But appearances can be deceiving, as the area’s dense vegetation hides a dark family secret. Tielle yearns for escape from her tormentor. As she grapples with how to move forward, Tielle also struggles with the question of how to protect her younger siblings. Brennand elicits extraordinary performances from her ensemble, many of them non-professional. Jamilli Correa as Tielle is astonishing in her first feature in this gripping story of the loss of innocence.
Friday, April 18, 8:45 pm — Presidio Theatre (Chestnut St.)
Friday, April 25, 7pm — BAMPFA
