VLAFF screening takes viewers on a journey

Film festival returns to Douglas College

By Cheryl Minns, Columnist

The 14th Vancouver Latin American Film Festival (VLAFF) is teaming up with Douglas College to screen one of its festival films at the New Westminster campus. The Modern Languages department invites students and the public to come see a free screening of Francisco Varone’s Road to La Paz on September 8.

The film is about Sebastian (Rodrigo de la Serna), an unemployed 35-year-old who decides to use his car as a taxi service in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His customer is Khalil (Ernesto Suarez), an elderly Muslim man who wants to go to La Paz, Bolivia, which is over 2,000 kilometres away. During the long journey, the two men have their disagreements, pick up additional passengers along the way—including a dog—and eventually come to understand one another a little better. The film will be presented in Spanish with English subtitles.

Modern Languages instructor Ruth Mandujano-Lopez chose the film from the options offered to the college by VLAFF director Christian Sida-Valenzuela.

“I chose this one because it promises an engaging plot between a young man and an older man. It addresses, among other themes, the relation between a Christian and a Muslim, a topic that has a lot of relevance nowadays,” Mandujano-Lopez explained.

“While I have not watched the entire film, what I saw seemed to address the issue in a respectful and critical way, with the young character adopting some of the mainstream prejudices at the beginning, but undergoing a transformation once he actually interacts with the alleged ‘Other.’ I am curious to see how the entire film looks at this and what the audience thinks,” she said.

Douglas College has shown VLAFF screenings for the past few years, including Juan Carlos Cremata Malberti’s Nothing More in 2013 and Moisés Sepúlveda Illiterate in 2014. In 2015, the VLAFF included the FIDAAC (Columbian Audio-Visual Arts Itinerant Film Festival) and screened several FIDAAC films at the college, including VICE documentary ¡Pacifista!.

The college has previously brought in guest speakers during the screenings, such as the films’ directors. However, this year’s screening won’t feature any special guests since it occurs outside of the 14th VLAFF, which ran from August 25 to September 4.

“In the past, VLAFF ran throughout our first week of classes. This year, it ends two days prior to our first day of the semester. But since we have worked with the festival for all these years, they agreed to keep our screening, even if it was outside of the festival’s official times,” Mandujano-Lopez explained. “I thought this was better than having a screening a week prior to classes at Douglas College.”

Road to La Paz will be screening at 4:30 p.m. in lecture theatre N2201 at the Douglas College New Westminster campus on September 8.