Boricua cinema in Soho
THE NEIGHBORHOOD north of Tribeca also has a film festival. The Soho International Film Festival returns for the third year with a showcase dedicated to Puerto Rican cinema.
The fest, which begins Friday and runs through the next Friday at Sunshine Cinemas, 143 E. Houston, features over 60 independent films, documentaries and shorts.
On Sunday, a lineup titled “Spotlight Puerto Rico,” will screen three films from the Caribbean island, the feature-length “El testigo” (“The Witness”) alongside the shorts “Remember” and “Smell the Coffee.”
“In the last three or four years, the Puerto Rican film industry has grown a great deal. It is very exciting to see that our movies are being shown around the world,” says from the island, Andrés Ramírez, 28, director of the martial arts film “El testigo.” The film tells of the adventures of a young man who witnesses a murder committed by the mafia in the streets of Puerto Rico, and must now run from both the criminals and the police to save his life and his girlfriend’s.
“We shot it in Spanish so we could help open doors and show that Latinos can do not only comedy or drama but also horror, action and suspense,” says the director, who also made the psychological thriller “Entremedio” (“A Place Within,” 2006) and the action drama “Elite” (2010).
“Remember,” a 15-minute short directed by Puerto Rican actor Armando Riesco, is a modern adaptation of an Anton Chekhov story, and “Smell the Coffee,” by Armando Fente, Jr., is a nine-minute romantic comedy.