Texas State Hosts Puntos de Vista Festival

"La Serpiente Emplumada," directed by Universidad del Norte – Colombia student Andrés Felipe González Franco, is part of Session 2's film slate.

Texans talk a lot about our neighbors to the south. Mexico and Central America more broadly is a land rich with culture, and we've absorbed many Hispanic traditions of language, food, and entertainment in our daily lives.

But here in Austin, our more direct neighbors to the south are our friends down there in San Marcos, and this weekend, the two communities unite in the Puntos de Vista documentary film festival.

Puntos de Vista is a Spanish-language film festival put on by the Texas State University's Center for the Study of Latino Media and Markets in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication (aka El Centro). The 15-20-minute documentaries it features were written and produced by Hispanic students in the film studies programs in Colombia, Chile, Mexico, and Peru, who are competing for $3,500 in prize money divided among the top three entries.

"This event provides an opportunity for our students to gain an understanding of the differences and uniqueness’s among Latino cultures, thus working as a platform to develop new ideas for storytelling and cultural interaction,” said Sindy Chapa, associate director of El Centro.

Want to get in on some of that cultural interaction? It'll only take a quick jaunt south on I-35.

The fourth annual Puntos de Vista film festival runs 8:15am to 10pm on Friday, April 12, at the LBJ Student center on the Texas State University campus in San Marcos. The event is free and open to the public. To learn more or to see the full festival program, visit the festival website.

For more Central American film programming, check out Cine Las Americas next week.