Austin’s Cine Las Americas 2021 adds some free films, competition shorts, youth films and more for next month’s fest
The Austin-based Cine Las Americas International Film Festival (CLAIFF) announced additional feature films for next month’s hybrid presentation, taking place June 9-13, including four free-to-the-public screenings led by a special sneak preview of Trisha Ziff’s Oaxacalifornia: The Return, the world premiere of Geoff O’Gara’s Home From School: The Children of Carlisle, and the US premiere of Louise Heem’s Juan. CLAIFF’s also announced this year’s lineup of competition short films, music videos, and the film festival’s signature “Emergencia” Youth competition films.
CLAIFF Lead Programmer Ernie Quiroz, said, “We love giving our Cine Las Americas audience and community here in Austin something special to add just that much more luster to the festival and what fits the bill better for that than a sneak preview screening here and a world and/or US premiere there? A vital part of our efforts are to do what we can to make our film festival available and accessible to everyone who wants to enjoy it. We are also excited about the scope, variety, and pure entertainment to be found in our shorts and music video competitions, as well as our Emergencia Youth films as we continue to look for and promote the next generation of filmmakers out there.”
Free-to-the-public both online and in a limited capacity in-person sneak preview screening, Ziff’s documentary Oaxacalifornia: The Return (Oaxacalifornia: El Regreso) reacquaints us with the Mejías, a multi-generational family from Mexico living in the United States. The film follows the new generation of the family as they repeat the journey the family made to Mexico 25 years ago.
Also offered free-to-the-public online are the three Panorama Features. Making its world premiere will be Geoff O’Gara’s Home From School: The Children of Carlisle. The film looks at the experience a delegation of Northern Arapaho tribal members had as they traveled from Wyoming to Pennsylvania to retrieve remains of three children who died at Carlisle Indian Industrial School in the 1880s. Louise Heem’s Juan focuses on a young man who makes the momentous decision to travel back to his native country in order to look for his biological mother. Sam Vinal’s The Struggle Continues (La Luche Sigue) takes us to Honduras, the most dangerous place in the world to be a land defender, and the people who refuse to back down in the face of state backed megaprojects and narco-traffickers who seek to assassinate them, destroy their lands, and erase their existence.
Cine Las Americas also rolled out the lineups for their short film competitions in the narrative and documentary categories, as well as the “Hecho in Tejas” locally shot and produced films, the music videos in competition, and the “Emergencia” Youth competition films.
For more information about film schedules, passes, tickets and more about Cine Las Americas, visit https://cinelasamericas.org/.
2021 Cine Las Americas Additional Film Selections
SNEAK PREVIEW SCREENING
Oaxacalifornia: The Return (Oaxacalifornia: El Regreso)
Director: Trisha Ziff
Countries: United States/Mexico; Running Time: 84 min
25 years ago, we met the Mejías, a family from Mexico living in the United States, as they traveled back to Mexico with their American children. This film finds us in the present, meeting the new generation of the family as they make the trip once again. What remains the same, and did their dreams come true? Oaxacalifornia: The Return explores notions of family and home, and how fast identity and cultural alliances can shift in a single generation.
PANORAMA FEATURES
Home From School: The Children of Carlisle World Premiere
Director: Geoff O’Gara
Country: United States; Running Time: 56 min
In 2017 a delegation of Northern Arapaho tribal members traveled from Wyoming to Pennsylvania to retrieve remains of three children who died at Carlisle Indian Industrial School in the 1880s. It’s a journey into the troubled history of Indian boarding schools and a quest to heal generational wounds.
Juan US Premiere
Director: Louise Heem
Countries: France/Paraguay; Running Time: 71 min
Juan was adopted in Paraguay in 1987 when he was a few months old. He’s been living in the North of France since then. He’s been thinking since his adolescence to go back to his native country in order to look for his biological mother. After numerous doubts due to his fear that his mother might refuse to see him, Juan finally decided to look for her. Thirty years after his arrival in France, he flies to Asunción with his cousin Louise.
The Struggle Continues (La Luche Sigue)
Director: Sam Vinal
Countries: United States/Honduras; Running Time: 66 min
In Honduras, the most dangerous place in the world to be a land defender, the Lenca and Garífuna people are not backing down. They are fighting to uphold their spirituality and Indigenous ways of life in the face of state backed megaprojects and narco-traffickers who seek to assassinate them, destroy their lands, and erase their existence.
NARRATIVE SHORTS COMPETITION
Aburo Texas Premiere
Director: Cecilia Otero Rivas
Countries: Cuba/Chile/United States; Running Time: 17 min
David (17) dreams of becoming a ballet dancer, while his twin brother Alexis plans to rob a restaurant. The brothers’ inability to relate to each other has brought them to the brink of a domestic war that erupts in a fight the night before the auditions. Their opposite paths will make them meet again in the middle of Havana
The Longest Dream I Remember Regional Premiere
(El sueño más largo que recuerdo)
Director: Carlos Lenin
Country: Mexico; Running Time: 20 min
With systematic organized crime of forced disappearances unattended and unpunished in Mexico, widespread atrocities leave behind lingering grief and remnants of disturbed memories. Tania intents to leave her hometown where her father has been taken away from by the authorities, however, she must confront what her absence will mean to her family and their ongoing search for him.
Shedding Skin (Escamas)
Director: Katherina Harder Sacre
Country: Spain; Running Time: 17 min
Alicia is a seamstress. She works designing and making women’s clothing, but behind the fabrics she hides the secret of her own body; the nuisance and disconformity that she feels with it after having been mastectomized as a result of breast cancer. After the accidental flooding of her apartment, she meets Lucia (41), a transsexual woman who is her new neighbor. Despite the tense first encounter they have, these women meet again and start spending more time together.
Empty Spaces (Espacios Vacíos) Regional Premiere
Director: Clara Stephanie Schieber Lorenesi
Countries: Guatemala/United Kingdom; Running Time: 20 min
A woman that works as a housekeeper and the older woman she takes care of live alone in a big house. As the older woman’s body starts to betray her, the housekeeper sees to take care of her. This changes the boundaries of their relationship. At the same time the housekeeper faces the decision to go home and take care of her family or remain in her job far away from them.
Made in China US Premiere
Director: Ale Damiani
Country: Uruguay; Running Time: 7 min
After matching on Tinder a young couple wakes up the morning after to find out that a strange pandemic will have them in lockdown together.
DOCUMENTARY SHORTS COMPETITION
The Roots Weaver (La Tejedora de Raíces) Regional Premiere
Director: Fernando Saldivia Yáñez
Country: Chile; Running Time: 10 min
A poetic observation of the indigenous Yaghan art of grass-weaving as developed in Chile. Documenting an inter-generational process from the extraction of raw material to the exhibition of a final piece, The Roots Weaver explores how an original tradition is attached to diverse aural and visual textures.
Melting Snow
Director: Janah Elise Cox
Country: United States; Running Time: 7 min
Melting Snow is a dig into the past, an act of media archeology, contextualizing the filmmaker’s
Grandparents’ experiences to make sense of the present and examine the way American narratives are told, and often warped.
Men Who Talk World Premiere
Director: Cristin Stephens
Countries: Brazil/United States; Running Time: 14 min
Men who Talk is an intimate portrait of Black Brazilian men, struggling to find their place in society. They meet twice a month at “the circle” to grapple with a shared, challenging reality.
Mi Arma
Director: Jesús Pascual
Country: Spain; Running Time: 7 min
Tradition and subversion. Folklore and revolution. The passion of a young drag queen for the cultural elements of his homeland, Andalusia, and the problems involved in incorporating them into his own artistic expression.
Until We Find Them Regional Premiere
Director: Hunter N Johnson
Countries: United States/Mexico; Running Time: 30 min
Mexico has over 80,000 disappeared people. Darwin and Dalia are married independent journalists in Guadalajara dedicated to searching for them. Their investigative work helps lift up the voices of thousands of families who will stop at nothing to find their loved ones, and details how the government has repeatedly failed to help them in their search.
HET COMPETITION SHORTS
2AM Lullaby Regional Premiere
Director: Sean Schiavolin
Country: United States; Running Time: 13 min
At an old theatre in Austin, TX, a stage performer sings a nightly lullaby to herself after the glitter has faded and the makeup has been wiped off. A night janitor from far away secretly hears her song as he works alone. A chance encounter between them could forever change their destinies.
Disrupted Borders Regional Premiere
Director: Alejandra Aragón
Country: United States; Running Time: 19 min
Wendy (17) is an aspiring engineer who tinkers using parts from discarded electronics in hopes of making a 3D printed prosthesis for her best friend Shelly (16), an artist with double limb deficiencies. These young Mexican-American women reinvent cultural, gender, and ability norms against a turbulent backdrop of the border recently scarred by racist policies and attacks.
Don’t Touch World Premiere
Director: Tania Cattebeke Laconich
Country: United States; Running Time: 9 min
Two women of very different cultures reflect about the unspoken rules of touch.
Espera World Premiere
Director: Emily Grooms
Countries: United States/Mexico; Running Time: 14 min
Asylum seekers await their immigration appointments in a makeshift refugee camp on the Texas-Mexico border after “Remain in Mexico” puts their dreams on hold indefinitely.
Femenina
Director: Ilana Garcia-Mittleman
Country: United States; Running Time: 12 min
Feminina tells the story of Nick, who lives his life in the confines of a boxing ring. When Nick begins training with Nina, the newest member to join the gym, he quickly realizes his feelings for her and asks her out on a simple date. But when Nina comes out to him as transgender, Nick must examine his own feelings and sexuality
H02D World Premiere
Director: Gabilán (Juan Gabriel Padilla)
Country: United States; Running Time: 24 min
H02D (pronounced Hood) captures the music and life of Austin, Texas rapper Blakchyl. Set to the soundtrack of their most recent album “H02D” & collaboration EP with rapper Tåsi “East 10th,” the short film explores an increasingly gentrified East Austin from the point of view of a Black, queer, & gender non-conforming artist born & raised in the Live Music Capital of the World.
The Forgotten Language (La Lengua Perdida) Texas Premiere
Director: Mirella Yanez
Country: United States; Running Time: 7 min
A young Latina woman explores and reflects upon the loss of her once native tongue which leads to speaking to a loved one, in earnest, for the first time.
Leftovers World Premiere
Director: Gabriela Maite Curiel
Country: United States; Running Time: 6 min
Maite has had enough of her food being eaten, so now she is serving up some revenge.
You are Me & I am You (Tu Eres Yo y Yo Soy Tu) World Premiere
Director: Melissa Kirkendall
Countries: United States/Ecuador; Running Time: 14 min
A documentary about Carmen Cumba, an indigenous midwife in the High Sierras of Ecuador who despite many hardships and obstacles has dedicated her life to helping the women of her community both as an Ancestral medicine practitioner and as an advocate for equality for her fellow midwives in Ecuador.
MUSIC VIDEO COMPETITION
Atlantida by DNGDNGDNG
Director: Rafael Pereira
Running Time: 4 min
Buena Vida by Los Master Plus ft. Pato Machete
Director: Jos Macias
Running Time: 4 min
Buena Vida portrays the colorful cumbia and barrio culture the way Los Master Plus and Pato Machete grew up seeing it. The places we see in the visual represent lower class hoods of Guadalajara and Monterrey, which combined with the song lyrics, intend to celebrate who you are in hopes for a good life.
Cuando Se Van by La Doña
Director: Naomi Garcia Pasmanick
Running Time: 7 min
Cuando Se Van is about resistance to gentrification through cultural production. It is an exploration of the idea that like a Phoenix, only through earth-shattering destruction can our city and society be reborn.
Loka by Chhoti Maa
Director: La Pipol
Running Time: 3 min
“EMERGENCIA” YOUTH FILM COMPETITION
A Mexican at USC
Director: Emilano Torres
Country: United States; Running Time: 4 min
A young man tells the story of his dad attending USC as an undocumented immigrant and the challenges he faced along the way, but that didn’t stop him from graduating from there.
A United Nations Experience
Director: Malinalli Perez
Country: United States; Running Time: 7 min
A young woman lends insight on her sister’s experience of traveling to New York City and attending one of the biggest indigenous United Nations conferences and how it changed her sister’s life. As a 16-year-old participant in the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues with her school, she soon realized that many indigenous communities across the globe face a lot of similar obstacles and challenges within their communities.
Filters of Life
Director: Angelica Rubio
Country: United States; Running Time: 4 min
Living in a two-bedroom home with 2 different families, filmmaker Angelica Rubio embarks on a path to understand family dynamics, vulnerability, and personhood. This film documents that journey as well as what she discovers along the way.
First Time Out
Director: Alex Sosa
Country: United States; Running Time: 4 min
When a vision-impaired college freshman student reminisces about his first time out with a roommate, he learns that he can also have a normal life. Only to discover that his biggest fear has come true, and he must fight for his happiness.
Gentrification
Director: Samira Barragan
Country: United States; Running Time: 6 min
A young woman reflects on how gentrification has changed her neighborhood and wiped out the people who have worked there and lived there for years.
Heels (Tacones)
Director: Juan Castro
Country: Spain; Running Time: 6 min
The terrifying journey of a girl after leaving a party until she arrives home. A story that relates what women feel day by day on streets. (Emergencia 14+)
Intolerance (Intolerancia)
Director: Jaime Vicent Carmona
Country: Spain; Running Time: 3 min
In a world suffering a huge crisis due to the pandemic, the essence of the human being, its values and its fears emerge from the depths of the human soul towards society.
The Last Celebration (La Última Fiesta)
Director: Adrián Ramos
Country: Mexico; Running Time: 17 min
The patron saint festivities is the most important celebration of the year. (Emergencia 14+)
My Diary at the End of the World: Football Edition (Meu Diário no Fim do Mundo: Edição Futebol)
Director: Beatriz Figueira Velloso
Country: Brazil; Running Time: 10 min
Surviving the end of the world can be a difficult task, but Marisbela, Nicole and now with Alice too, saw how to have fun at a football match (even with the world falling apart).
Ni Yankwik Xinachtli
Director: Axayacatzi Kuauhtzin
Country: United States; Running Time: 5 min
A film of Indigenous generational knowledge on medicinal plants and alternative medicine and how the seed is reflective of the person and the prayer of the universe.
Our Face (Nuestro Rostro)
Director: Damaris Calderon
Country: United States; Running Time: 3 min
Our faces are our faces. They can be a reflection of our artistic skills and interest. Regardless of how you identify yourself, your face will always be a canvas to artistically express yourself.
Resurrection
Director: Aiden Cumming Teicher
Country: Canada; Running Time: 3 min
Sometimes people come into your life and show you what love is all about. Whether they are partners, mentors or chosen family, they are the people that give you hope and help you through to better days. So I guess this is a love song for all the people that have made a difference in my life, and made me a better human being.
To Memory and to Oblivion (Al recuerdo y al olvido)
Director: Clara Dalmao
Country: Uruguay; Running Time: 7 min
After returning from the Auschwitz concentration camp, Abel meets a harsher reality than the one he has been through; Elena didn’t survive. In an attempt to keep her alive in his memory, he begins writing her letters.
The Waltz of Time (El Vals del Tiempo)
Director: Mario Martínez Sáenz
Country: Spain; Running Time: 9 min
An old man escapes from the nursing home and appears lost in the middle of the pasture. Near a tree, he begins to waltz to the rhythm of his memories.
