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Win tickets to Dos Crimenes (Two Crimes) VECM

Raul — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 18:06:59 +0000

No plans for Valentine’s Day? Trying to figure out which movie to go to (if you’re doing dinner and a movie)? Well, the kind folks at Vancouver Latin American Film Festival and Pacific Cinematheque gave me a pair of tickets for tonight’s (8:45pm) showing of Dos Crimenes (Two Crimes, aka Kissing Cousins).

Two Crimes (also known as Kissing Cousins), a delightful comedy adapted from a novel by Jorge Ibargüengoitia, was Sneider’s debut, and won Mexico’s Ariel Award for Best First Feature. Damián Alcázar (the lead in Carlos Bolado’s Under California: The Limit of Time, also screening in this retrospective) plays Marcos, a Mexico City architect who finds himself flat broke and then falsely accused of a murder. He hightails it to the sleepy town of Cuevano, where he has family, and insinuates himself into the household of his wealthy uncle Ramon (José Carlos Ruiz). Irascible Ramon enjoys carousing with Marcos, and seems to buy Marcos’s lies: that he’s come to town to acquire a local gold mine — and maybe Uncle Ramon would like to invest? But Ramon’s sons are having none of it, and the ensuing manipulation and mayhem teaches big-city Marcos that small-town life may be more complicated (and dangerous) than he supposed. Colour, 35mm, in Spanish with English subtitles. 107 mins.

To enter the contest, simply re-tweet this post (it should be tagged #sanvalentin, St. Valentine’s, in Spanish). I will draw a winner at 2pm and inform the winner via Twitter AND email. If you’re not on Twitter, please drop a comment on this post and I’ll inform you via the email address you provide.

Viva El Cine Mexicano at Pacific Cinémathèque Feb 10th to 21st

Raul — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 23:55:29 +0000

I was recently walking by the corner of Broadway and Main and all of a sudden, I stopped on my tracks. I saw a poster, written in perfectly good Spanish, “Viva El Cine Mexicano” (Hooray the Mexican Cinema). I stopped in my tracks and wondered “what is this?”. It wasn’t until I read that it was presented at Pacific Cinémathèque, that I figured that this might be a joint production of VLAFF and the Mexican Consulate in Vancouver. I wasn’t wrong. I have always had really great relationships with the Vancouver Latin American Film Festival (I covered the festival last year), and recently I’ve started to talk more to the Mexican Consulate.

I figured I’d highlight this very worthy event. Given that the Vancouver 2010 Olympics will be well underway during a few of the days of the duration of the Festival, I wonder if the attendance might skyrocket. If that’s the case, I would strongly encourage you to get your tickets for this festival soon.

Mexican cinema (particularly in recent years) has experienced a renaissance. This particular event commemorates 2 big milestones in Mexican history, the 200th anniversary of Mexican independence from the Spaniards and the 100th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution. The Viva El Cine Mexicano festival will offer a broad variety of excellent movies:

The program showcases works spanning 75 years of illustrious Mexican cinema. Included are classics by Emilio Fernández, Fernando de Fuentes, Luis Buñuel, Paul Leduc, and Arturo Ripstein; two celebrated films dramatizing the Revolution, de Fuentes’s El Compadre Mendoza (1934) and Leduc’s Reed: Insurgent Mexico (1973); and key films by some of contemporary Mexican cinema’s most important and acclaimed directors, including Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro, Carlos Carrera, Dana Rotberg, Roberto Sneider, María Novaro, and Carlos Bolado.

Many of these artists are represented by their debut or breakthrough works. Five of the films screening here won the Ariel Award (Mexico’s equivalent of the Oscar) for Best First Feature; seven received the Golden Ariel for Best Film. Our exhibition opens with Jorge Fons’s multiple-prize-winning Midaq Alley (1995), which may be the most honoured Mexican film in history. We close with Carlos Reygadas’s extraordinary Silent Light (2008), one of the great films of current world cinema. (Silent Light also screens this January/February cycle in Pacific Cinémathèque’s “Best of the Decade” program, as do additional features by both Cuarón and del Toro — some measure perhaps of the ascendancy, in recent years, of Mexican filmmakers to a place of true international prominence).

All screenings at Pacific Cinémathèque (1131 Howe), $ 9.50 single bill, $ 11.50 double bill. The cost of tickets is really inexpensive, and for the quality of movies they’re showing, really worth it. I encourage all my readers to check at least one of the films of this fantastic festival “Viva El Cine Mexicano”. I will inquire with the VLAFF office to see if I can have some tickets to giveaway. If that’s the case, I’ll update the post and run a contest.

UPDATE – VLAFF and the Viva El Cine Mexicano Festival have given me TWO double passes to El Compadre Mendoza on Thursday, February 11 at 7pm. I’ll draw a winner on Wednesday February 10th at 1pm. To enter the contest, simply drop a comment on this post. I’ll draw two winners, one per each double pass. Have fun!

Win tickets to “La Buena Vida” (closing film of Vancouver Latin American Film Festival)

Raul — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:33:46 +0000

The folks at the Vancouver Latin American Film Festival have treated me extraordinarily well, and they have been kind enough to offer a pair of tickets to the closing film of VLAFF, “La Buena Vida” (The Good Life). You may remember that this year’s country of focus (2009) was Chile. Well, La Buena Vida is a Chilean/Spaniard co-production.

La Buena Vida tells the story of four characters – Teresa, Edmundo, Mario and Patricia – in Santiago, Chile, in 2008. All are strangers to each other, but live in the same bustling city. All of them are chasing their dreams: Teresa tries to save lives as a psychologist; Edmundo is a hairdresser who dreams of owning a car; Mario wishes to join the Philharmonic; and Patricia works on surviving daily life. As they follow their dreams, but struggle with misfortune, each of the characters will be surprised by where life takes them.

Drop a comment on this post any time before 4pm on Friday September 18th, 2009 and I’ll draw the winner at 4pm and announce it both on Twitter and here on this post. Thanks again to VLAFF for sponsoring this contest!

NOTE – La Buena Vida will be shown at 7pm on Sunday September 20th, 2009 Granville 7 Cinemas (GR 7) at 855 Granville Street (at Robson).

Vancouver Latin American Film Festival

Raul — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 17:00:35 +0000

I think it’s no surprise to anyone given my name and last names that I’m from Latin American roots. Moreover, I think with all my film coverage that you can tell that I am a huge promoter of film festivals in Vancouver. In particular, I am a big fan of the Vancouver Latin American Film Festival. My dearest friend LB (now Dr. LB, as she recently defended her PhD in Political Science, looking at a Latin American country as her research case study) and I were always looking forward to attending VLAFF. She and I spoke in Spanish frequently and we loved watching Spanish-language films together. Alas, she is now in Ottawa and I will have to go to VLAFF with other friends (but i’ll be thinking of LB too).

While I sadly was unable to go to the opening night of “Arráncame la Vida” (a Mexican film, delightful, starring Ana Claudia Talancón and Daniel Giménez Cacho, and with a screenplay based on the Angeles Mastretta story), I will definitely make an effort to check some of the VLAFF. My understanding is that this year’s focus country is Chile.

Also, for my readers, stay tuned because I’ll be giving away free tickets for some of the films. Arráncame La Vida is the official Mexican nomination to the Oscars, and I believe it should win, it’s a beautiful film.

The trailer to Arrancame La Vida is shown below. You can get tickets to the VLAFF by following this hyperlink. I’m really tempted to check Lake Tahoe (not surprisingly, a Mexican film). But honestly, every single film shown offers a great opportunity to delve into Latin American film. If I could watch all these films (if I had the time) I would!

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