OUR FILM FESTIVAL BUILDS COMMUNITY
Creating a film festival that lasts 30 years doesn’t just happen. It requires a generous spirit, leadership and a deep commitment. This 30th edition of the San Diego Latino Film Festival is an expression of all of the above.
I have a unique perspective on it. As a student, I participated in the very first edition when it was known as Cine Estudiantil and essentially a student film festival. This month, as a veteran filmmaker, I will present a new film at what has become a world-class film festival.
In that first year, I was one of several student filmmakers who provided my early work as part of the festival’s programming. At those first screenings, I met festival director Ethan van Thillo, and found him to be articulate, thoughtful and as resourceful as can be. Thirty years later, I find him to be even more articulate, even more thoughtful and a true logistical mastermind.
The cliché would be to say that “time flies” and here we are. However, it is important to look at how those 30 years have been utilized. From those very humble beginnings, the San Diego Latino Film Festival has become one of the premier festivals not just in California, but anywhere. What a gift this festival is to the city of San Diego, to the country and to filmmakers in the United States and internationally!
Here’s what a film festival can do: It can create community. At their best, films bring people together for a collective experience. And bringing people together is essential not just in “making” films but in watching films. For all its convenience, streaming a film at home will never come close to being the singular human experience that watching a film in a theater with other people can be. A film festival can create the opportunity for that experience.
As a filmmaker, you welcome any distribution of your work, but there’s a profound and special magic in presenting your work to an audience, to a community. As a filmmaker, you can meet your peers and reconnect with colleagues at a film festival.
This type of interaction is critical for filmmakers. I have so many longtime friends who I have met at film festivals. These are filmmakers who I learn from and who I take inspiration from. A film festival helps to create a community of filmmakers.
The San Diego Latino Film Festival also creates community by presenting to audiences many different expressions of Latino life. It shows Latino life not just here in the United States but internationally. While representation of Latinos in film and television in the U.S. is improving, this festival blows the doors off of any limitations in representation that exist in mainstream film and television. The work presented at this film festival shows Latinos in an endless variety of ways.
The films presented give us stories, characters and experiences that allow us to completely recalibrate any preconceptions of Latinos that we may have. You build “community” when you think differently about people. Perhaps you’re able to see yourself in their stories and their unique realities.
This festival creates the opportunity for this to happen. Music, food and celebration also help to create community. With all the additional programming that the San Diego Latino Film Festival offers, it invites us to dance, to eat and to enjoy each other’s company. Not to brag, but yes, we Latinos excel when it comes to cuisine, music and parties. If you doubt me, come see for yourself during the festival. I can’t wait to dance with my wife at the festival’s closing night party with La Sonora Dinamita playing cumbia after cumbia. The community that will be created that night will be particularly joyful.
I congratulate the San Diego Latino Film Festival, its organizers and its sponsors on this 30th anniversary. It is a tremendous achievement. Thank you to this festival for being a touchstone in my life, and for being a home away from home. Thank you for including me as part of the community that you create year after year.