Cine Latino Film Festival returns to Sydney for its third year in 2018, with a schedule of 26 features, three docos, a special Argentinian film screening and a Cuban retrospective. The festival is presented by Palace Cinemas.
The festival kicks off with a bang in the form of the Australian premiere of Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma. This semi-autobiographical drama is set Mexico City in the early 1970s revolves around two domestic workers who help a single mother with her children. Cuarón based this story on his own upbringing during the political upheaval of 1970s Mexico as a show of affection for the women who raised him, and this personal story won this year’s Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion Award. The director’s previous film, Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, earned him the Oscar for Best Director in 2013.
If you can’t get enough of Cuarón, you’re in luck as his 2001 breakout film Y Tu Mamá También (And Your Mother Too) will close the festival. This is coming-of-age drama about two boys who take a road trip with an older woman holds the record for the highest box office opening in Mexican cinema history, and launched the careers of Diego Luna, Gael Garcia Bernal and Maribel Verdú.
Also screening is Amalia la Secretaria (Amalia the Secretary), a Colombian romcom centering around an irritable office worker and the bond she forms with the bumbling maintenance man of her office building. Touching Costa Rican drama Violeta al Fin (Violeta At Last) stars Eugenia Chaverri as a 72-year-old woman who has divorced late in life and goes on a journey to discover what possibilities her life still holds.
There’s another chance to see the winner of Best Film at the 2018 Sydney Film Festival, The Heiresses (Las herederas), an examination of the lives of the Paraguayan wealthy through the troubles a woman in crisis.
Documentaries include Pope Francis: A Man of His Word, German director Wim Wenders’ personal journey with Pope Francis, the first pontiff from the Americas; and Nossa Chape: Our Team, which covers the rebuilding of a Brazilian soccer club after most of its players are killed in a 2016 plane crash.
Venezuelan-turned-South Australian comedian Iván Aristeguieta (Lost in Pronunciation, ABC) is this year’s festival ambassador and he will open the festivals in both Melbourne and Sydney.
The Cine Latino Film Festival will play in Sydney at Palace Norton Street, Palace Verona and Palace Central Platinum. Tickets are on sale now.