Guest post by Dr. Alberto Varon.
The Latino Film Festival sponsored by the Latino Studies Program has become a premier programming event for the IU and Bloomington communities since 2012. As in previous years, the two-day event will convene local scholars and film directors on the Bloomington campus to showcase and discuss recent trends in Latino film. This year’s theme, “Latinx Spaces,” makes visible the current state of Latino communities in the U.S., but it is also a provocation, asking viewers to consider their assumptions about who and what is Latino.
In just the last few years, the term “Latinx” has risen to prominence as an alternative to the more common and recognizable “Latino” or “Latina.” In the Spanish language, masculine words end with “a” and feminine words end with “o,” a linguistic convention that unwittingly naturalizes certain gender identities as essential to Latino life, and one with a long and complex history of colonization in the western hemisphere. Critics within and outside the academy have begun to use the “x” ending to interrogate the underlying assumptions within Latinx culture and within language. The “x” in “Latinx Spaces” reminds us how language evolves to better reflect the complexity of the Latino experience, and the need to find new ways to represent Latinx communities.
The second half of this year’s theme — “Spaces” — is both idea and metaphor; space is both the places we inhabit and the distances between us. These films connect the disparate areas that Latinxs inhabit, but also remind us of the concrete and intangible bonds that connect our communities, both Latinx and otherwise. Whether urban or rural, Midwestern or coastal, these spaces are filled with countless, varied experiences, all connected in our collective quest to find love, security, a better life. This year’s film festival considers the present state of Latino culture in the U.S., but also exhibits the rich history of Latinx participation in U.S. culture.
One feature film, Dolores (2017), describes the life of Dolores Huerta, a founding figure in the Mexican American civil rights movement and one of the most influential figures in Latinx history. The film, like the festival theme, gives center stage to a woman whose contributions to history have at times been overshadowed, invoking the immediacy of Latinx call. The film’s director Peter Bratt is scheduled to be present, allowing audiences a chance to discuss the vision and processes of making a feature-length documentary with a renowned filmmaker. Given the contemporary anxiety over immigration, the Congressional stalemate over DACA, the vitriolic discourse about Mexico and Mexicans emerging at every level of politics and culture, and the potential collapse of NAFTA, several critics have called the film politically important and perhaps a powerful cultural alternative to the characterization of violence in Mexico.
Just this month, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the nominees for the 2018 Oscar Awards, and many critics remarked on how this year’s nominee list boasts the largest number of women and African Americans in recent memory, with several nominees setting new records for representation. Despite this, few Latinos or Asian Americans are included in the list. In a world that is increasingly digital and saturated by media, but where access to the mechanisms and distribution channels of mainstream media remains difficult, IU’s Latino Film Festival serves a vital role, providing a venue to showcase films by and about Latinos. Many of the films being screened at the festival are available to Bloomington and Indiana audiences for the first time, offering our community a chance to engage with important films circulating in other major cultural centers. IU’s Latino Film Festival has an opposite and complementary effect, putting Bloomington on the map as a premiere destination in which to exhibit contemporary films.
Please join us for this unique and inspiring event.
The Latino Film Festival begins March 2 with Latinx Love Across Time and Space (Shorts Program), Dolores, and Signature Move. The series will continue on March 3 with Hostile Border, Beatriz at Dinner, and Elliot Loves.
This series is sponsored by La Casa, Latino Cultural Center; LGBTQ+ Culture Center; the departments of Gender Studies, American Studies, Sociology, and History; the School of Education; The Media School; the Center for Research on Race and Ethnicity in Society; the Office of the Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Multicultural Affairs; and the IU Cinema.
Alberto Varon is Assistant Professor of English and Latino Studies at IU Bloomington, author of Before Chicano: Citizenship and the Making of Mexican American Manhood, 1848-1959, and a regular moviegoer.