PHLAFF & Comcast: HHM X1 Programming
We’ve been celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month with an array of incredible programming, and it all started with our exciting collaboration with Comcast X1! 🎉✨
From now through October 15th, catch a selection of films that once screened at PHLAFF, available On Demand on their platform.
What is the Comcast X1?
The Comcast X1 is a digital cable TV platform that integrates traditional TV programming with online streaming services, making it easier for users to access live TV, on-demand content, apps, and DVR recordings in one place.
How is PHLAFF collaborating with Comcast and their X1 platform this Hispanic Heritage Month?
We’re happy to share that this Hispanic Heritage Month, PHLAFF is sharing several feature-length and short films on the Comcast X1 platform, available for streaming until October 15th. Enjoy offerings from our 2023 and 2024 seasons of PHLAFF.
What films from PHLAFF are available on the platform for this HHM?
The following films will be available from now until October 15th:
St. Vierja Academy
Directed by Jose A. Stoute
Toño, a successful US-based physician, is drawn back to Panama by the death of a high school friend. As he visits the cemetery, memories flood back from his time at the renown St. Vierja Academy, one of Panama’s most exclusive catholic schools for boys in the 1970s. Despite coming from humble beginnings in one of Panama's poorest neighborhoods, Toño camouflaged his background among his affluent classmates. He endured relentless bullying, ridicule, and more from teachers and students. Toño's life takes a darker turn when he is coerced into drug distribution to protect his secret. Expelled when his side job is discovered, Toño orchestrates a plan to expose his blackmailer and secure his return to school, with assistance from an unexpected ally. At the final revalidation exam in front of his nemesis, the physics teacher, he initially stumbles but he eventually triumphs and graduates to the surprise of many. Returning to St. Vierja Academy as an adult, Toño revisits the painful memories of his past, leaving behind a gift at the tombstone of his friend. After encountering a ghostly apparition of his younger self, he makes peace with his tumultuous past.
Daughter of the Sea
Directed by Alexis C. Garcia
After the death of her grandfather, a young woman experiences a spiritual awakening when she is called by Yemaya, the orisha Goddess of the Sea.
Cambio Cambio
Directed by Lautaro Garcia Candela
Pablo and Florencia work on Florida Street, touristic and financial epicenter of Buenos Aires. Economic difficulties affect their life together, until they find a way to do business by exchanging dollars with their own community of traders. When their boss finds out, their project gets in danger.
El Caribe en Mí
Directed by Juan Carlos Garía AKA JC Garpadi
Five contemporary Puerto Rican artists -Daniel Lind. Nick Quijano, Diana Dávila, Mireidi Méndez, and Raymond Cruz Corchado- share their diverse visions and thoughts on the meaning of making art in the Caribbean, and on the presence of the region in their work. Each artist has chosen for the film a location that connects with their vital experience and perspectives. Through their interaction with these spaces they articulate textures, sounds, recollections and senses of place that deliver a diverse narrative about the experience of living, being and creating art in the Caribbean.
¡Dímelo Rapeando!
Directed by Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi
Where daily practices become ritual, repetitive, looped, and sequenced. A transatlantic, experimental Hip-Hop collaboration between Germany & Cuba.
Ro & the Stardust
Directed by Eunice Levis
A free spirited teen and her terminally ill grandmother build a rocket ship they plan to launch into outer space.
A Thousand Pines
Directed by Noam Osband and Sebastián Diaz
A Thousand Pines shows the lives of migrants who depend on the controversial guest worker visa program, following a crew of workers from Oaxaca, Mexico over the course of a season planting trees throughout the United States. The crew struggles to balance the job’s physical demands and its extreme isolation while remaining connected to their families back home. As the season progresses, they become a small family, cooking and caring for each other in order to endure the punishing work. The film centers on the crew foreman, Raymundo Morales, who is in his 19th season working for the largest reforestation company in the US. When he began, he was single and had few responsibilities. Now, however, he must balance his obligations to his wife, his children, and his elderly mother with a heart condition, while also tending to the needs and emergencies of the planting crew. Spending only three months at home during the off-season, Raymundo’s job is both the family’s salvation and its heartbreak.
La Comuna
Directed by Linda D. Maymí
After years of growing as a team, this Puerto Rican group of circus performers, known as “La Comuna” (The Commune), have been forced to leave their creative headquarters. It has been one year since their last performance and now they must come together to pick up the pieces of their creative home. Staring Marietere Vélez (actress and screenwriter, “Receta no incluida”), Yussef Soto (actor, circus performer, and founder of “Y no había luz…”), Delia Isabel Rivera, Miguel Sabalier, and Catalina Morales
FOR THOSE TO COME
Directed by Mikey Cordero and Frances Medina
For Those To Come takes on the task of unearthing the fight and strategies of communities combating the climate crises that threaten the livelihood of the people living in Puerto Rico. This documentary project is as much of a love letter, as it is a wake-up call, for Puerto Rico y su gente. While the wrath of climate change and political infrastructures attempts to cast a shadow over the islands’ future, solutions-driven and people centered projects and advocacy campaigns – often led by women - continue transcending any government intervention or systems.
Stay tuned here on our website and on our social media channels to learn more about our exciting year-round programming opportunities!
