The Tampa Bay Latin Film Festival returns to St. Petersburg for the second year this weekend. The event will screen classic and contemporary filmmaking—from feature-length films to documentaries and short films—and strives to answer three key questions: What’s happening in Latin American film? Who are the up-and-coming filmmakers? And what inspires them?
“This is a collaborative cultural project with local artists, international filmmakers and many sponsors and volunteers in the community of Tampa Bay,” said USF St. Petersburg Professor of French Martine F. Wagner.
Wagner serves as one of the screeners for the Latin Film Festival, which spun-off from St. Petersburg’s popular Sunscreen Film Festival when members of the Hispanic Film Committee decided to launch their own event focused exclusively on Latin American movies. As a screener, it’s Wagner’s job to rate the films and select which ones make it into the festival.
Last year, Wagner helped develop an internship in collaboration with Festival Director Linda Friedman Ramirez, which gave student Decker Lavely the opportunity to watch films, assist in key administrative tasks and coordinate with media and local businesses to promote the festival. Lavely has returned to intern again in 2019.
Many of this year’s films include poignant and harrowing themes related to undocumented immigration, detention centers and the lives of transgender people, said Wagner. “There are a lot of contemporary issues this year, which are of interest to students.”
The films also include historical and political movies on the Cuban Revolution and Puerto Rican Independence Movement.
Some of this year’s films include Antonio Coello’s Creation of the Earth, an animated short film made by Seri indigenous children and elders; Bestor Cram and Mike Majoros’s Last American Colony, which documents the fraught relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States; and Abner Benaim’s Ruben Blades is Not My Name, about salsa icon Ruben Blades.
Wagner is part of USF St. Petersburg’s World Languages Program, which seeks to expand students’ global awareness. One of the ways it achieves this is through internships, study abroad opportunities and events such as the Latin Film Festival.
“The Latin Film Festival can give students another point of view on various issues related to Latin America and Latinos,” she said. “There are not a lot of international movies available in the area, so it’s amazing that we are able to do this here.”
Wagner has also served as a screener for the Sunscreen Film Festival for several years. The next Sunscreen Film Festival will take place in April 2020 and the screening committee members are already at work watching and rating movies.