Los documentales aumentan en el 30.° Festival de Cine Latino de Chicago

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CHICAGO — Animación, comedia, documental y drama son sólo algunas de las categorías que se presentarán en la 30.ª edición del Festival de Cine Latino de Chicago (CLFF, por sus siglas en inglés). Alejandro Riera, Director de Relaciones con los Medios de Comunicación del festival, nos dejó saber que este año habrá 78 películas; 31 son de nuevos directores. Habrá también 14 documentales. “Comparado con festivales pasados, hay más documentales este año”, explicó Riera. Riera no puede decir si el público prefiera el género documental sobre los otros géneros.

South by Southwest (SXSW) sounds a double vibe — the frightening and the fantastic

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AUSTIN – The smell of booze, sweat and vomit grow stronger as I get closer to 6th street, which is the city’s urban core located downtown that is historical and filled with entertainment in Austin, Texas.Nonetheless, the different types of people, the friends that surround me, the free shows and certain films that I want to see outweighs the repulsiveness of it. South by Southwest or as it is commonly known as SXSW is a set of film, interactive, and music festivals and conferences that take place early every year during March in Austin. I’ve gone every year since 2011 and I noticed that each year after that, the people have become more obnoxious because of the free alcohol that’s available practically in each venue. RSVPing is important in this festival, for example Fader Fort is an invite-only installation at SXSW that is a four-day party event that is sponsored by Levi’s and is, by far, the most popular because of the amount of famous people it brings. This year it brought Lady Gaga, Kanye West, Gorillaz and many more.

Lisa Elliott, assistant professor at EPCC, and Bobby Gutierrez, senior lecturer at UTEP, present student work at the third annual Student Film Festival. (Alejandro Alba/Borderzine.com)

Film festival gives students a greater audience for their work

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EL PASO – Film students from the University of Texas at El Paso and El Paso Community College yanked their movies out of their computers and projected them for everyone to view at the third annual Student Film Festival. “The biggest tragedy in filmmaking is for a film to stay in a hard drive. This is what you want, a venue where people can see your work,” said Robert Gutierrez, digital media production professor at UTEP. Gutierrez said the collaboration between the two schools worked as a pipeline so that EPCC students can see what to expect when they transfer to UTEP. “I think the students, before, used to produce for just their friends, but now they know that other people are watching, so that raises their quality of their work,” Gutierrez said.

El Paso’s 1st Annual Pride Film Festival provides insight into issues of gender and sexual identity

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EL PASO — The city of El Paso hosted its first-ever major film festival featuring 26 films by, about, and for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) June 18-June 21 at both the Downtown Main Library Branch and the Plaza Philanthropy Theatre. “The Frontera Pride Film Festival is truly a community festival,” said Doctor Brenda Risch, director of the Women’s Studies department at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) and of the film festival committee. “For it would not have come to fruition without the dedication and countless hours of hard work from our diverse planning board and much support from our community.” The film festival was also possible thanks the hard work and support of the Women’s Studies Program at UTEP. The program provided internship experiences to students by offering work in the film festival. A Queer Cinema course under the Women’s Studies program also participated.