Latin film festival brings Cuba to Providence

PROVIDENCE—The 17th Annual Providence Latin American Film Festival has been going since Wednesday and wraps up Sunday with a full slate of movies. The focus this year is Cuban Cinema.

“Los Dioses Rotos, The Broken Gods, “ kicked off the festival.  It is the story of a historic procurer of women, who was killed by rival Frenchmen in the early 1900s of Havana, Cuba.

“For the first time, many of these films ever seen anywhere in the U.S.  They’re fascinating films.  We’re very lucky and happy to have them because it isn’t very easy to receive films from Cuba,” said Jose Torrealba, Director of the Providence Latin American Film Festival.

Each year, a little more than a half dozen exceptional first-time Latin film directors are invited to show their films in front of a captive audience.  Then the judges have to decide which the best of the best is.
 
Most of these films are medium budget, $500,000 not the big budget multi-million dollar money machines.

“The advantage of small pictures is that you can make the picture you want.  Nobody’s breathing down your neck telling you what to do,” said Enrique Fernandez, a movie writer-director and judge.

  As a result, you get a fresh vision with a unique perspective.  A challenge for the judges, he says.

“El Regreso Way” is a short documentary about an immigrant woman from the Dominican Republic who makes her way to New York.

“There are millions of women especially women who made it out here supported their families you know struggling in a different country with very limited education, limited resources you know, they tried to do the right thing, they kept their dignity, their honor,” says Francisco Diaz, director of El Regreso Way.

October is Hispanic heritage month, and on the second floor of the Watson Institute at Brown University, historic posters of films from the Cuban film institute are on display through October 15.

Sunday is the last day for the Providence Latin American Film Festival.

To get a list of the movies, and locations, go to the Providence Latin American Film Festival web site.