Boston Latino International Film Festival
Howard Thurman Center at Boston University
775 Commonwealth Ave
October 19-21
Free!
[ Schedule ]

BLIFF may sound like bluff, but we're not bluffing when we say that the Boston Latino International Film Festival has some fine films (shorts, documentaries, full-length features, and more) coming up in this final weekend of the festival's 6th year running. Titles include Bragging Rights: Stickball Stories, Immigrant Reflections: Three Boston College Service Workers Share their Stories, New Bedford Stories, I Believe in America, La historia de Liz Rojas, and many more. View the schedule to find out when the various movies are being screened, or check out the festival descriptions of a few notable films after the jump. Support Latino and international film by attending the festival.

Friday, October 19, 8:00 p.m.

Lost and Found in Mexico
Caren Cross, 53 minutes, documentary: Mexico, 2006

Have you had dreams of taking a break and living in Mexico? Or dreams of retiring in Mexico? After a one-week vacation, Caren Cross and her husband were so enamored with San Miguel de Allende that they returned home, ended their careers in the U.S. and impulsively decided on early retirement. What motivated them to do this? What attracted them to life in Mexico? Why would they give up their comfortable lives and leave all of their family and friends? In moving to Mexico, Caren discovered parts of herself that had been dormant for many years. She felt alive in a way that she hadn't felt for a long time. Moving to Mexico was the beginning of an awakening. [ Official site ]

Winner of Best Documentary at the 2007 Boston Film Festival

Saturday, October 20, 8:45 p.m.

Brujería (Voodoo Woman)
Carolina Valencia, 35 minutes, documentary: Canada & Cuba, 2006

Voodoo Woman is a powerful first-person account of the director's own gender transformation and the bizarre journey that leads her to accept a complex destiny. It is a tale of the unseen forces that often have profound influence in our lives, if only we choose to believe in them.

Sunday, October 21, 5:45 p.m.

Choropampa: The Price of Gold
Stephanie Boyd and Ernesto Cabellos, 70 minutes, documentary: Peru, 2004

This is the story of an Andean paradise lost -- lost after a devastating mercury spill. On June 2, 2000 at the Yanacocha goldmine in the Peruvian Andes, 151 kilograms of liquid mercury spilled over a 25-mile long area, contaminating three mountain villages, including Choropampa. The environmental catastrophe turned this quiet village into a hotbed of civil resistance. The mine, jointly owned by a Peruvian company, the World Bank, and the Newmont Mining Corp of Colorado, insists the problem was quickly resolved, while villagers tell a starkly different story. Choropampa: The Price of Gold follows their valiant struggle for health care and justice over a two-year period. "A powerful film. Hopefully it will serve as a wake-up call to mining companies worldwide that people come first." -- Lucien Chauvin, Washington Post correspondent, Peru

Winner of audience prize at 2003 Barcelona Human Rights Film Festival

Images from BLIFF website at http://bliff.org/