Latin American film festival opens in Vancouver Special

Vancouver - For the eight time, the Vancouver Latin American Film Festival (VLAFF) starts in Vancouver tonight with a special spotlight on Colombia as the guest country when featuring ”Los Viajes del Viento” by Ciro Guerra at the Opening Gala.

Colombia has been trying hard to make its cinematography famous on the international scene of movie making by bringing film directors, producers, photographers and actors to make films in very fast way. Its movie making production grew from a few in a year to almost 20 a year and the hopes for more are running very high. Rosa E. Marshall, the Honorary Consul of Colombia in Vancouver says:

"Colombia is celebrating 200 years of independence and it’s an honour to be able to participate. The films you are about to see are true representation of our people, our culture and dreams. I hope that after you see those films, you have a better understanding of our beautiful country and its people and will like to visit sometime".

Joseph Boltrukiewicz

Before Opening Gala of the 8th VLAFF at Granville Cinemas, Vancouver.

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The festival (Sept. 2-18) will have participating countries of: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Guatemala, Peru, Spain and Mexico which, along with Colombia, celebrates its 200 years of independence and 100 anniversary of the revolution. There will be 16 feature films and 33 short films spread through different galas and programs of the festival. The event has a few different venues; main events are scheduled at Granville 7 Cinemas, Videomatica and Pacific Cinematheque and those at Simon Frazer University Harbour Centre and Burnaby Campus as well as Roundhouse Community Centre will run free of charge.

Joseph Boltrukiewicz

Mexican Corona - movie sponsor of the VLAFF, Vancouver.

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Another program of the festival, “Canada Looks South”, will present both feature and short films made by those directors who live in Canada and are of Latin American origin. “Cry of the Andes” (Denis Paqueta and Carmen Henriquez, Peru) will tell the story of Pascua-Lama community in the middle of the Andes where a Canadian mining company, while opening its business, is threatening the region’s water resources in one of the driest place of the Earth. “The Coca-Cola case” by German Gutierrez, has a story about Coca-Cola corporation fight with the unions in Guatemala and Colombia and how a US Human Rights group is trying to take the company to court. The director will participate in a panel discussion with professors from Simon Fraser University Latin American Studies Department after screening his film at SFU Burnaby Campus. German Gutierrez says:

“Last year, 101 unionists were murdered in the world, 48 were Colombian. And so, as it has for many years, Colombia retained its position as “the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists”, with over 2,800 killed since 1986”.

Apart from the Opening and Closing Night Gala, the Brazilian Gala (Granville 7 Theatres, Sept. 7th) will feature “E prohibido fumar” (Anna Muylaert) and Mexican Gala (Granville 7 Theatres, Sept. 9th) will present “Alamar” (Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio). The festival has funders, many sponsors (gold, silver, media, workshop and movie) and media partners.