OLA of Eastern Long Island's 19th annual Latino Film Festival will take place at three venues from next Thursday through Sept. 18, with four feature films whose themes include truth, beauty, faith, and magic.
"We're celebrating our 20th year as a Latino-focused advocacy organization, and are thrilled to be sharing with the East End our most exciting film festival yet," says Minerva Perez, OLA's executive director. "The lineup of films is truly amazing. They are all visually and thematically rich, and all very different from each other.”
The festival will kick off with the Long Island premiere of "Silent Beauty," Jasmin Mara Lopez's documentary about the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her grandfather, and her process of healing and recovery.
Ms. Lopez, who was born in the United States with familial roots in Mexico, will fly in from California for a discussion after the film. The screening will happen next Thursday at 8:15 p.m. at the Sag Harbor Cinema. Tickets are $10; the film is not for children under 13.
"The King of All the World," a Mexico-Spain co-production directed by the Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura, with cinematography by the Oscar-winning Vittorio Storaro ("Apocalypse Now"), will be shown outdoors at the Parrish Art Museum on Friday, Sept. 16, at 7 p.m.
A musical drama, the film is the story of Sara, a choreographer, who is invited by Manuel, a stage director, to help him prepare a new musical in Mexico. Variety called the film "a dizzying mix . . . of imagination and different fictional realities." A bilingual museum tour and reception will precede the film at 6. Tickets are $15, $5 for members and students.
The festival will return to the Sag Harbor Cinema on Sept. 17 at 7 p.m. with "Clara Sola," Nathalie Alvarez Mesen's award-winning film set in a remote village in Costa Rica, where Clara begins to free herself from the repressive religious and social conventions that have dominated her life.
The film "occupies its own territory, tinged with magic realism and deeply immersed in the sensory world," said the Hollywood Reporter when it was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 2021. Tickets are $10.
The festival will conclude on Sept. 18 with its first-ever program at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center. A free screening of "Encanto," Disney Studios' computer-animated musical fantasy-comedy, will take place at 2 p.m. and be followed by live music by an Ecuadorian band and a singing competition for young people.
All films are in Spanish with English subtitles.
