September 18, 2002

By Camille T. Taiara

WITH THE OVERWHELMING popularity of movies like Amores perros and, more recently, Y tu mamá tambien at big-screen U.S. theaters, Spanish-language film has finally begun to attract the mainstream attention it has long deserved. Yet it's the untiring work of smaller outfits such as Cine Acción that has helped bring the rich offerings of Latin American cinema to the world stage. Festival ¡Cine Latino! – now 10 years old – might not enjoy the funding resources of, say, the San Francisco International Film Festival. Nor does it possess the SFIFF's ability to attract the most internationally renowned directors from other hemispheres. What it does manage to do – quite well, and at times despite all odds – is provide a forum for independent flicks and grassroots works that might otherwise go unnoticed, fresh new works at the forefront of underground Latino film and video circles within the United States and abroad.

While many filmmakers continue to experiment with traditional forms of film, Cine Acción's lineup this year also includes numerous examples of how video – a much more accessible and therefore populist medium – is being used in new and creative ways. The overall result is an array of features, documentaries, and shorts programs by and about diverse facets of Latino communities spanning from Los Angeles to Buenos Aires.

Cine Acción's 10th ¡Cine Latino! film festival opens tonight with Ricardo Bravo's Oriundi, featuring the great Anthony Quinn's last performance, and a mini-retrospective on Chicano ethnographer-filmmaker Jesus Treviño that includes screenings of "In Search of Aztlan" (2002) and his classic documentary "Yo soy Chicano" and features the director in person. A special guest is also expected at the screening of Oriundi. What follows are a few other highlights.

Señorita Extraviada (Lourdes Portillo, USA) Renowned San Francisco-based Chilanga-Chicana director Lourdes Portillo's artfully filmed documentary is a poignant exposé of the brutal murders of hundreds of teenage women in Juárez, Mexico, a maquiladora-driven town across the border from El Paso, Texas. The victims share common traits: all were poor, young, dark complexioned, and had shoulder-length hair. All were raped, their bodies left to decompose in the desert. Portillo interviews family members of the victims, local authorities, the lawyer for a falsely imprisoned Egyptian defendant, girls on the street, and a survivor whose testimony makes your skin crawl. Interspersed throughout are television footage and newspaper accounts that trace the events as they unfold and reflect public reaction to the killings – including speeches by a politician who in essence blames the victims for their fate. Portillo makes adept use of images as metaphors but otherwise allows the story to speak for itself. Who, exactly, is responsible for this rash of assaults remains a mystery. Instead, audiences come away with a sense of the depth to which corruption penetrates Juárez's police department and the sheer pervasiveness of a most deep-seated misogyny that renders life and human suffering utterly worthless when the subject is an impoverished girl. Thurs/19, 6:30 p.m. (director in person; reception 10 p.m., Pop's, 2800 24th. St., S.F.).

Everyday Eastlake (Pepe Urquijo, USA) The third work by local Chicano filmmaker Pepe (a.k.a. Pepelícula) Urquijo ("Algun día," "Beca de Gilas"), Everyday Eastlake profits from a diverse cast of youths from the East Bay Asian Youth Center, where Urquijo teaches video, and other residents of Oakland's multicultural Eastlake neighborhood. Urquijo encouraged his actors to offer up their own ideas during the creation of the video, a telling view into the soul of a neighborhood and the often humorous ways residents, who must negotiate different languages and cultural reference points, coexist. A decrepit computer makes its way from the sidewalk to the home of a Mexican immigrant family, then into the hands of a Vietnamese music-store owner, who promptly loses it to a couple of kids collecting on a gambling debt, and back onto the sidewalk again. In the meantime two Southeast Asian teen girls scam a ride to a rave. And the neighborhood recycling lady gains newfound freedom with the purchase of a used scooter – and puts her aluminum can pincer to wanton use. Chance encounters and personal agendas intersect and transform throughout, in a hilarious romp through 48 hours in the hood that attests to the spirit and ingenuity of everyday people. Fri/20, 9 p.m.

Hawaiian Gardens (Perry Adlon, USA-Germany) Ignore the gratuitous nudity (female, of course) within the first 30 seconds of Hawaiian Gardens, and you've got a fascinating glimpse into what could easily be glossed over as an undistinctive microcommunity were it not for the imaginative flair of director Percy Adlon (Bagdad Café). Three characters, residents of a Los Angeles mixed-use housing and strip-mall complex, share profound but disparate relationships to the written word. Bruno (Richard Bradford) is a talented and prolific author who goes to great lengths to live in anonymity and finds his finest inspiration in the company of ordinary people. Rosa (Veleria Hernández) has chosen the aging writer as her mentor and best friend. A bright 17-year-old Chicana who shares Bruno's youthful passion for literature, Rosa has learned to use her feminine wiles to get what she wants. And she wants justice. But her tactics are not without sentimental consequences. Then there's Baldi (Andre Eisermann), an austere German who's made millions robbing master writers from around the world of their work and selling their writings – indeed, their imagination – over the Internet. That is, until Rosa turns his world upside down. A surprise ending leaves viewers with much to contemplate. Fri/20, 10 p.m.

'Development Program' This program of shorts features three promising pieces from the United States and Mexico. "En el camino del surco," by Afra Citlalli Mejía Lara, details how neoliberal agricultural policies in Mexico resulted in thousands of farmers leaving their homelands to work as field hands in the United States and abroad. Francisco Herrera's "Uprooted: Refugees of the Global Economy" follows similar stories of displacement caused by global economic policies that make it impossible for many to survive in their countries of origin, in this case Bolivia, Haiti, and the Philippines. Finally, "Land Yes! Planes No!," by Adan Xicohtencatl, documents local subsistence farmers' struggle against plans to build a new airport in Atenco, an impoverished community on the outskirts of Mexico City. Thurs/19, 7 p.m.

Festival ¡Cine Latino!

Festival ¡Cine Latino! runs through Sun/22, Brava Theater Center, 2789 24th St., S.F. $7, $5 students, seniors, and Cine Acción members ($12 for opening night reception and West Coast premiere of Ricardo Bravo's Oriundi); family passes $20, festival passes $25.

The festival is followed by Best of the Fest, encore presentations of selected work from the previous week's screenings, as determined by audience votes. Sept. 27-29, New College of California, 777 Valencia, S.F.