Seattle Latino Film Festival comes to Redmond and Eastside for the first time

Published 5:22 pm Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Redmond City Television (RCTV) is teaming up with the Seattle Latino Film Festival (SLFF) to broadcast a number of selections beginning next Wednesday.

SLFF is in its fourth year and this is the first time the 10-day festival, which begins Friday, has made its way to the Eastside, with viewings in Kirkland, as well as Redmond.

SLFF cofounder and director Jorge Enrique González Pacheco (right) said the 10-day festival will show 31 titles, including 19 feature-length films, from 22 countries in seven languages: Spanish, English, Portuguese, Italian, French, Hebrew and Quechua.

The Cuban native added that the festival has featured one country each year and this year’s country is Brazil. Past countries have been Columbia, Mexico and Argentina.

“We want to teach more about our culture,” Pacheco said about bringing the festival to the Eastside.

SLFF board member Latha Sambamurti, added that this is also an opportunity to expose these films to a wider audience, as well as the festival itself.

Sambamurti, who is also the artistic director for the annual Anandamela, Joyful Festival of India in Redmond and a former member of the city’s Arts Commission, joined the SLFF board to offer a non-Latino perspective and as a Redmond resident, worked to bring the festival to the Eastside.

Pacheco added that there is also a significant Latino population on this side of Lake Washington, as well, which is another reason to bring the festival here.

“We are happy because this opportunity is amazing to us,” he said.

The films showing during RCTV’s Wednesday broadcast will be “Una Vida Mejor” at 6:30 p.m. and “Los 100 Sones Cubanos” (below) at 8 p.m. “Mejor” is a 52-minute Guatemalan documentary about immigrants following 30 years of war, peace and economic and social upheaval in the Mayan village of Todos Santos. “Sones,” which  was nominated for a Grammy in 2011 for outstanding soundtrack, is an 81-minute documentary that follows the roots and impact of Sone music in Cuba and throughout the world.

On Thursday, there will be a screening party at Azteca at 3040 148th Ave. N.E. in Redmond featuring “Día naranja,” a film about three women from three different Latin America cities, who face unexpected pregnancies. RCTV will also screen “Amores Imperfeitos,” a 74-minute Brazilian film about a couple who meets 10 years after a painful breakup and one night before one of them moves to Norway, will be broadcast at 8 p.m.

In addition to the films, Pacheco said a few filmmakers will be making appearances throughout the festival, as well as representatives from various human-rights organizations as a number of the featured films focus on the topic. SLFF is also partnering with the University of Puget Sound to bring Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Mirta Ojito in for a lecture.

All films will be screened on the RCTV Arts Channels 75 (Comcast) and 35 (Frontier) for cable customers within the City of Redmond. For more information, call Patrick Hirsch at (425) 556-2439 or email him at phirsch@redmond.gov. For more information about the SLFF, visit www.slff.org.