VANCOUVER LATIN AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL will open its program of 70 films from 24 countries with the Canadian premiere of Argentinian-Uruguayan A Loose End on September 10.<\/p>\n
The Spanish-language cop-on-the-run comedy combines Western, thriller, and rom-com elements\u2014and marks the latest by Uruguayan actor and director Daniel Hendler. <\/p>\n
VLAFF, one of the largest and longest-running Latin American film festivals in North America, will continue to September 20 at venues around town, including SFU Woodward\u2019s, The Cinematheque, Cineworks (in the same building as The Cinematheque), as well as copresentation screenings with the Vancouver Queer Film Festival at the Cineplex Odeon International Village Cinemas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Other highlights include a special guest appearance by renowned Colombian director, screenwriter, and producer Oscar Ruiz Navia. The fest will screen 2019\u2019s Fait Vivir and 2025\u2019s Tigers Can Be Seen in the Rain\u2014both made since the filmmaker has relocated to Montreal.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, Mexican actress, director, and screenwriter Mayra Hermosillo is coming to the festival to present the Canadian premiere of her directorial feature debut, Vainilla. The film, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival and won the Audience Award at the 2025 Morelia Film Festival, is set in the home of a multigenerational family of women. It\u2019s currently nominated for Best Picture at the Mexican Academy of Film Awards. Hermosillo will also present Newborn, the 2024 feature in which she stars as the mother of an intersex baby and all the ethical questions she faces around gender assignment.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, six standout features will compete in VLAFF\u2019s New Directors Competition. The titles include Mexico\u2019s The Reserve, directed by Pablo P\u00e9rez Lombardini; Argentina\u2019s Elder Son, directed by Cecilia Kang; U.S.-Guatemala coproduction Comparsa, directed by Vickie Curtis and Doug Anderson; Mexico\u2019s The Devil Smokes (and Saves the Burnt Matches in the Same Box), directed by Ernesto Mart\u00ednez Bucio Castellanos; Ecuador\u2019s Light Memories, directed by Misha Vallejo Prut; and Argentina\u2019s Lovers in the Sky, directed by Ferm\u00edn de la Serna.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The\u00a02026 VLAFF Youth Jury,\u00a0made up of 18 young filmmakers, students, and artistic creators based in B.C., will engage in online dialogues with all of the New Directors and choose the winner of the Youth Choice Award for Best New Director.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, 15 shorts, chosen from over 350 submissions from across Latin America, will compete for the fest\u2019s top short-film prize, representing six countries and four languages\u2014Spanish, Portuguese, Guaran\u00ed, and Nahuatl. The selected works include films by Indigenous, women, queer, and trans\/nonbinary filmmakers. Several directors will attend in person.<\/p>\n
And as ever, VLAFF will showcase Latin-Canadian cinema, including the Vancouver premiere of Copper, the 11th feature by the enfant terrible of Latin-Canadian cinema, Nicol\u00e1s Pereda. Likewise, local filmmaker and artist semillitxs hern\u00e1ndez velasco, codirector with his sister Tania Hern\u00e1ndez Velasco, will present the Canadian premiere of their innovative, intimate feature film Our Body Is an Expanding Star. VLAFF is also preparing to show its largest-ever selection of Latin-Canadian short films.<\/p>\n
Curated by Akira Iahtail and Masa\u2019n Galindo, the program Following the Voices of Our Ancestors to the Future shines a spotlight on Indigenous futurism, and includes the cinematic essay \u201cSukkaillutit Uqaruk – Say It Slowly\u201d by Inuk filmmaker Ashley Qilavaq-Savard. All screenings in this section are free. The Panamanian-Ember\u00e1 coming-of-age feature The Dance of the Kokorrdit by Guido Bilbao and Elio Cunampio will screen under the heading of Films from Turtle Island and Beyond. <\/p>\n
For the third year in a row, VLAFF and Vancouver Queer Film Festival will copresent Queer Pix, short films by 2SLGBTQ+ Latin filmmakers, followed by the Fuego\/Fogo live performance and Latine DJ dance party at The Birdhouse on September 19.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Local artists will play live music at the fest\u2019s free \u00a1AS\u00cd SUENA! Music Nights in the Cinematheque courtyard from Friday to Sunday evenings at 7:45pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VANCOUVER LATIN AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL will open its program of 70 films from 24 countries with the Canadian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":823628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[49,48,55],"class_list":["post-823627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/823628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}