Adapting to circumstances
Boston Latino Film Festival’s (virtual) show will go on
This year’s 20th Boston Latino International Film Festival is yet another arts entry affected by the ongoing pandemic. “A film festival in person? There’s nothing like it with so many shared experiences,” BLIFF director Sabrina Aviles acknowledged.
“We had hoped for a big shebang! But we decided months ago that given how erratic COVID and the pandemic were, we weren’t sure — despite high vaccination rates in Massachusetts — if people would be comfortable going back to a theater. So we said, ‘Let’s go virtual.’
“Then Arts Emerson, our sole venue this year, said, ‘We won’t open until January.’ So I was comfortable with my decision to do virtual.”
There are other changes as well.
“This is a much more compressed edition,” she noted, “with only nine films as opposed to 30. Instead of the festival taking submissions, we decided to just curate the festival to have a presence in the Boston scene.
“I’ve been collaborating with other festivals throughout the year and this is a way to acknowledge these filmmakers.
“A lot of the films we were interested in were already streaming,” she added, noting the dramatic change in how films are now released. “We are showing seven documentaries and two narratives.”
BLIFF opens Friday with the acclaimed documentary “Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It,’ which will be followed by a Q&A with producer-director Mariem Perez Riera.
Monica Cohen, a local filmmaker originally from Bogota, presents her portrait of Diego Obregon, an unsung Colombian musician, in “Dreams of Chonta.”
“It’s the story of an artist, an undocumented immigrant who came to New York City by himself, who gave his music and culture to the world.
“He worked at a cemetery at day and recorded his first album at 40 years old,” Cohen said. “This seemed like an ideal subject for my first documentary.”
Cohen traveled to meet his family.
“He stayed for 12 years. He had three children back home and his wife, an incredible, wonderful family.
“I’ve learned we go to America for our dreams and becoming what we can become but we give so much. What Diego gave to his community in New York was so much — his culture, his sound, his music.
“Not having a formal education, being from a poor region of Colombia, he didn’t know how to navigate the system. But he was relentless, so positive in how he saw life. He would never say, ‘I can’t do this.’ He’ll say, ‘I go slow, things will happen eventually.’”
A complete schedule of BLIFF events, screenings and tickets is at bliff.org.