The San Diego Latino Film Festival will celebrate its 25th anniversary March 15 to 25 at the AMC 18 Fashion Valley, 7037 Friars Road, and at the Digital Gym Cinema in North Park, 2921 El Cajon Blvd.
The celebration will include tributes to filmmakers and actors, panels, a virtual reality lounge and the 25th anniversary awards ceremony gala.
More than 160 films from Latin America, the United States and Spain will be featured at the festival. Highlight films include the Argentine political thriller “La Cordillera” and the comedy “Una Mujer Sin Filtro” from Mexico.
There will be a special pre-screening and release of “Singing Our Way to Freedom” celebrating the music career and life of local music legend Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez.
In addition, Chula Vista resident and San Diego City College media professor Laura Castaneda will feature her short documentary “Maid in America,” a story about a woman who left her own children behind in Rosarito to come to the United States to care for other children. Castaneda worked on this project with former student Daniela Porter.
“She’s just one of a million women living in the shadows so to speak who have this story,” she said. “I have since heard this story repeated about other women too.”
This is the second time Castaneda has had a film in the festival; she makes it clear she got her work accepted before agreeing to coordinate media for the festival.
The film festival started off as a student film festival focusing on Latinos and the Latino experience. Castaneda said throughout the years it evolved into the biggest, longest running Latino film festival on the West Coast.
Ethan van Thillo, executive director and founder of the San Diego Latino Film Festival said the festival has spotlighted Latinos in the industry before they made it to Hollywood.
“We’ve helped change the tide in terms of getting Hollywood to notice the Latino Film makers and Latino actors and we’ve helped educate Hollywood and show them that they can distribute Spanish language and Latino films here in the border region,” he said.
He said the Latino Film Festival has featured the work of Diego Luna, Kate del Castillo and Gael Garcia Bernal before their work made it to Hollywood.
The San Diego Latino Film Festival is produced and presented by the nonprofit Media Arts Center San Diego.
For ticket information visit: http://2018.sdlatinofilm.com/tickets.
