Two weeks ago, a storm threw a snowy blanket on the final day of the XicanIndie FilmFest 7: Latino World Cinema. Come Sunday, audiences and the festival get that rare opportunity: a “do over.’
With movies from or about Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba and El Salvador, as well as the United States, Sunday’s itinerary speaks to XicanIndie’s reach.
Among the films screening: “ANC Hip-Hop Revolution’ about the Cuban hip-hop group Anomino Consejo, directed by Melina Fotiadi (2 p.m.); “Blue Diner,’ about a Puerto Rican daughter living with her mother in Boston who mysteriously loses the use of her first langauge, Spanish (3:30 p.m.); “Tropic of Cancer,’ Eugenio Polgovsky’s nearly silent but oh-so-observant documentary about families making do along a stretch of highway in the Mexican desert (5:30 pm.); and the racy whodunit “Santos Peregrinos,’ by Juan Carlos Carrasco (9:15 p.m.)
A particular stroke of bad luck made good is that the festival will again screen “Voce Inocentes,’ by Mexican director Luis Mandoki. It is based on screenwriter Oscar Torres’ childhood (7. p.m).
This year’s opening-night film takes place during El Salvador’s 12-year civil war, which ended in 1992. The innocents of Mandoki’s moving film – Mexico’s entry for the 2004 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film – are the boys being drafted for service in the army.
When Chava’s father leaves to go north, the boy becomes “the man of the house.’ An honorary title more than a reality, Chava still takes seriously his elevated role as protector of his mother and younger sister and brother, even getting a job collecting bus fare.
Mandoki deftly maneuvers the larger political issues of that war – including U.S. involvement in training Salvadoran soldiers – while never losing focus on a child’s tale. Because Chava is 11 and the draft age is 12, he, his family and school pals careen between elevated worry and more daily existence. Horseplay and schoolboy crushes can be upended at any moment by a visit from the soldiers to the elementary school; a family’s dinner table joke is silenced by yet another burst of gunfire.
As played by Carlos Padilla, Chava may not be the real authority in his family’s house, but he is certainly the little man of this film.
Film critic Lisa Kennedy can be reached at 303-820-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com.
| XicanIndie FilmFest 7: Latino World Cinema
FILM FESTIVAL|Starz FilmCenter at the Tivoli, Ninth Street and Auraria Parkway; screenings 2 p.m. to 9:15 p.m., Sunday|$6-$8; |tickets available at the box office; for more information, call 303-296-0219 or go online at starzfilmcenter.com
