Saturday,
June 20—
11AM

Panel Discussion

EMERGENCE: CARVING YOUR OWN PATH

Sannii Crespina-Flores, Moderator
Veronica Caicedo, Int. Puerto Rican Heritage Film Festival
Martha Diaz, Hip-Hop Education Center
Melissa B. Skolnick, GSE Films & Media Mobilizing Project
Eunice Levis, EKG Films

Emerging as an artist who provides critical media content that both inspires and has arrived through non-conventional means. Using this art to dispel, connect and build culturally, consciously and as a woman.

Bestia de Cardo tells the story of Moira, a wealthy, Dominican young woman, who is forced to return permanently to her asphyxiating hometown, Cardo, and to the double-faced society that she had left behind. Haunted by her history of mental delusions, the ill-tempered but spineless Moira goes back to her old routine of following her parents’ orders and aiding them to regain the family’s honor. The family’s upcoming New Year’s Eve Party will be used to better the family’s current dubious honorable standing. Instead, after a dinner with her cousin and her cousin’s husband, she quickly makes a crucial mistake that ends up endangering hers and her family’s reputation even more. Bestia de Cardo is a melancholy, fantastical and sensual study of social pressure, of the loneliness that can prevail within a broken family and of the unforeseen hope that can come with the beginning of a new friendship.

Dominican Republic, 2014
Virginia Sanchez Navarro, Director Spanish with English Subtitles
99 min
Q&A with Virginia Sanchez Navarro, Director

Four stories about love and self-acceptance: An eleven year-old boy struggles to keep secret the attraction he feels towards his male cousin. Two former childhood friends reunite and start a relationship that gets complicated due to the fear of getting caught. A gay long lasting relationship is in jeopardy when a third man comes along. An old family man is obsessed with a young male prostitute and tries to raise the money to afford the experience.

Mexico, 2014
Sergio Tovar Velarde, Director
Spanish with English Subtitles
110 min

The Liberator journeys through the impassioned struggle of Simón Bolívar’s fight for independence in Latin America from Spain and his vision of a united South American nation. A historical biography presented entirely from Bolívar's point-of-view, who commanded an army that freed a great part of the region from Spanish colonialism back in the 19th century, and is regarded as a forefather of South America.

Venezuela, 2014
Alberto Arvelo, Director
Spanish With English Subtitles
119 min

Sunday,
June 21—
11AM

Panel Discussion

FILMMAKING FOR SOCIAL CHANGE

Melisa B. Skolnick, Moderator
Andrew Padilla, El Barrio Tours: Gentrification in East Harlem
Gil Gonzalez, The Cuentos Project
Angel Issac Rivera, Boricua en el Medio

A screening and discussion on the filmmaking as a tool for social change in our communities. The conversation will focus on the work of filmmakers with stakeholders to address gentrification and other issues impacting the quality of life in our communities.

Andrew Padilla, Creator of the award-winning documentary El Barrio Tours: Gentrification in East Harlem, photographer, educator and independent journalist.

Gil Gonzalez, Director of The Cuentos Project, award winning visual artist, author, community activist and filmmaker.

Sunday,
June 21—
1PM

Feature Film | Q&A

CANCION DE BARRIO

Crystal Hayden marries an LAPD Detective obsessed with the murder of his late wife during a robbery. A robbery in which everyone was caught except for the lookout and possible driver. As her husband's investigations move forward, Crystal tries to protect her family from the tragic truth.

Venezuela, 2015
Gordon Milcham, Director
English
Q&A with Gordon Milcham, Director

In 1898, the United States invaded and colonized Puerto Rico as part of the Spanish American War. For 114 years the people of Puerto Rico have maintained a polarizing debate on the STATUS ISSUE that has been front and center of the political discourse on the Island. Puerto Ricans (American citizens since 1917) constantly dispute between the options of Statehood, Independence and Commonwealth. On November 6, 2012 the people of Puerto Rico held the fourth plebiscite in the Island’s history to try to redefine the political relationship with the United States. Weeks before the plebiscite vote, filmmaker Juan Agustín Márquez traveled back to his homeland and interviewed leading politicians, historians, sociologists, and economists to dissect the status debate in a multilayered conversation about the pros and cons of each option on the ballot.His mission: To explain the status debate to the people of the United States, Congress and the President, and bring the American people up to date on this century old question: Will there be a change in status in America’s Last Colony?

Puerto Rico, 2015
Juan Agustín Márquez, Director
English
90 Min

Yo Soy La Salsa is a documentary that celebrates the life of Johnny Pacheco and his artistic career spanning over five decades. This documentary follows the events leading to the birth of Salsa, that at first emerges more as a movement than a musical genre. Salsa was a cultural movement that emerged at a time of need for strengthening the Latino culture and it spread around the world with such force that 50 years later it is still moving the feet of the dancers in the most inhospitable corners of the world. At the heart of the movement is the figure of Johnny Pacheco, who is known as one of the greatest influences of the musical legacy of Salsa.

Dominican Republic, 2014
Manuel Villalona, Director
Spanish with English Subtitles
80 min