Latino Film Festival March 5-7

21st annual event shares LGBT experiences

The Latino Film Festival began in 1998 with a dream to bring the community together, to interact and grow with the help of College of the Redwoods (CR) and Humboldt State University.

The festival shows films from different latin countries, but now include themes to help choose which films will be featured. This year’s theme is The Experience of LGBTQ in the Spanish Speaking World, chosen by a group of students and professors from both CR and HSU.

From March 5 to March 7, three films will be shown at Mill Creek Cinema in
McKinleyville. The first film Rara, tells a story of lesbian experience, Santa & Andres, speaks on gay experience and to end the festival Una Mujer Fantastica, illustrates transgender experience, will play.

This is not the first year the Latino Film Festival acknowledges the experiences of LGBTQ. In the past, a Cuban film, Fresa y Chocolate was shown and was well received by those in attendance.

This year’s keynote speaker, David Tenorio, an assistant professor at the
University of Pittsburgh was invited by Christy Carlson from CR. Tenorio holds a PhD in Latin America and Caribbean Literatures and Cultures.

Russell Carlos Gaskell, language lab co-director/spanish at HSU, said that the structure of the film festival follows a format. The film is introduced by the keynote speaker then played for the audience and at the end there’s forum for people to discuss the topic of the film.

A representative from each college gives an interpretation and the keynote speaker.

Gaskell said that it’s important to organize film festival in Humboldt because films are the latest method of storytelling in the 21st century.

He added, films carry the capacity to provoke and invoke emotions within us all, and in the festival you can reflect upon those emotions with a group of peers and professionals at the end.