The Houston Latino Film Festival (HLFF) will celebrate its 10th anniversary with a slate of films, a Texas premiere, and guest filmmakers and actors over five days at the Midtown Arts & Theater Center Houston (MATCH). The festival will run Wednesday, March 18, through Sunday, March 22.
According to a press release, the 10th anniversary slogan “¡Houston, Aquí Estamos! underscores the festival’s mission to uplift emerging artists whose voices are often underrepresented in mainstream media.” HLFF programming focuses on films from Texas, Latin America, and Spanish-speaking countries around the world.
Pedro Rivas, HLFF Program Director, said, “When we started this, there wasn’t really a place that was featuring consistent Latino storytelling. Quickly we saw how vital the significance of having Latino representation was in our community.” The latest U.S. Census Bureau statistics count the Hispanic or Latino population of Houston as nearly 45%.
The festival will kick off at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday with an opening night party at the MATCH-Advocates of a Latino Museum of Cultural and Visual Arts & Archive Complex in Houston, Harris County (ALMAAHH) Gallery, free to festival badge holders. The 8 p.m. Texas premiere of American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez, known as “the godfather of Chicano theater and film,” will be followed by a Q&A with Director David Alvarado and actors Daniel Valdez and Cheech Marin.
Programming on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday will present a variety of short films, animation, documentary, drama, comedy, horror, and a screening of the 1981 classic musical film Zoot Suit starring Edward James Olmos and actor/director Daniel Valdez.
The Friday schedule includes a Tejano and soul vinyl set by DJ Mexican Blackbird, followed by a screening of Take It Away: the Rise and Fall of Tejano Hollywood, a feature-length documentary on Tejano music legend Johnny Canales.
On Saturday, alongside the film schedule will be a Tintero Projects poetry reading and a panel discussion, “The Next Step: Turning Your Short Film Into a Feature Film,” moderated by Sharon Arteaga, a Corpus Christi film director.
The Sunday program will close with The Dog, My Father and Us, a comedy by Ecuadorian director Pablo Arturo.
For the full festival schedule of shorts, feature-length films, and events, visit the HLFF schedule page. For information on single tickets and festival badges, visit the HLFF tickets page.