CFDBNYC Out and About

We got to go the 21st Annual Corto Circuito Latino ShortFest NYC last night which was its opening night and we were in some interesting storytelling based on the lineup of films that was featured. Opening Night was presented inside Instituto Cervantes New York on East 49th Street. Six films from all over the Latin Diaspora with the theme being and the winner is. The reason for that theme is that all six films won several awards in their festival runs some being best short in some. After watching all of them we can see why they won so many and why they were picked to kick off the festival. The festival started off with some opening remarks for the festival director and cultural director of Instituto Cervantes after those then the films started.

The first film was a animated short from Chile titled Gaspar. It’s about a elderly man whose routine gets disrupted by guilt and solitude. When a imaginary wine appears to falls to the ground is where the man’s emotions gets the best of him and leads him into a abyss. The shortest film in the lineup was also vivid in imagery and music. However the story got lost when listening to the sounds because you forget that the man is wallowing in self pity. The clay figurines converted into live action is brilliant but we did not get why the man is in solitude and who was the routine for. Yes it was a short film but there should have been a glimpse of how he got there. Gaspar was good but could have a small introduction. Next was Un Dia De Mayo (One Day In May) a Colombian short about a young boy who tries to understand the men and women of his life and family. Director Camilo Escobar directed a well paced film that showcased every emotion that a family goes through when dealing with a teenager and her younger sibling along with their own issues. The scenes of parents arguing with each other about the daughter and the young boy observing every movement is fantastic. The acting was well done as it showed a family coming together yet apart due to the fragile foundation its build on. The cinematography of this one was great. We can see why it has a award winning festival run and we hope it continues.

Shimmer was the final animation film in the lineup and it had a better story than Gaspar plus it somewhat connected to the previous film where the focus is family. A animated short from Mexico and directed by Andres Palma is a space age film of sorts where a family is castaway on a beach littered with shipwrecks. The father builds a lighthouse to help their rescue all the time he becomes negligent to his children and return they mistrust him to the point where they created their own way of escape. The animation and colors here are top notch and the scenes are magnificent. The story gets to be interesting when we see the kids interact with their father because the emotions the characters is amazing. You can see the pain and mistrust they have for him and vice versa. Whoever wrote the script did a brilliant job in telling a tale of a family battling to survive while battling each other. This dialogue between daughter and father is smart and important as it leads to the climatic end of the film. This film is definitely worthy of the awards it won in the festivals it entered. After Shimmer, Anba Dlo was up and this was a widespread production between Brazil, Haiti and Cuba. The film showcased elements of all three countries and focused on culture and upbringing. The film is about a Haitian biologist living in Cuba doing research on local wildlife. However while researching in water she gets reflections of her life in Haiti and realizes that Haiti is never too far from her. The emphasis of water is key in this film because of the representation of cleaning and refreshment to the biologist. She does her work in water however her upbringing in Haiti won’t allow her to go to far from her heritage. The scenes in the forest are great and so vivid with color and contrast to where you see the biologist embracing her calls from the past and figuring out what’s her purpose is. A great ode to religion in the diaspora where spirituality is important to one’s upbringing. Also we get scenes where the forest in the island is being conserved by biology and how important it is to the preservation of the people living around it. A solid film and one that keep the consistency of the previous where family albeit spiritual in this case is a bullet point.

De Sucre(Made Of Sugar) is a Mexican film about a woman with a intellectual disability who wants to get pregnant despite the challenges that comes with it. The best film of the lineup and the most important one because it showcases: women, people with disabilities and the treatment both received from society. Director Claudia Cedo crafted a brilliant story here where a institution for disabled people goes on a trip and Maria who’s the main character in the film is on the hunt to get pregnant by any means. The film goes through various stages of emotion from scared to excitement to rage to comedy. The acting is also on point where the characters on screen embody what’s it like to be disable and then told what to be like according to what society thinks. The script was well written and thought out properly to make the audience aware how uneasy and uncomfortable people with disabilities are when being told what they can’t and can do. Made Of Sugar is definitely one of the better films we’ve seen in any festival this year. Hopefully it’ll get turn into a full length one day because it’s that good. The final film of the lineup is Buscando Un Burro(Looking For a Donkey) which is a collaborative production between Mexico and Venezuela about the whereabouts of a donkey who was showcased in a satirical video insulting the president of the country. The documentary goes around the town and asks the residents about the incident only to be stumped and obtain some funny answers. The residents are the reason for this documentary being so hilarious and entertaining. The responses keeps you guessing but you’ll laugh to what they saw when asked. Seeing the turns that the documentary takes to find out the whereabouts of the donkey is even more funnier because it seems like a circle but isn’t. Looking For a Donkey was a good way to wrap up the lineup due to its story and characters also political to an extent giving what’s happening in New York City lately.

The Corto Circuito Short Fest runs November 9th in various locations throughout Manhattan and is free to the public. For more information go to cortocircuito.us