Pushing Past La Periferia
Cine Las Americas Film Festival aims for a wider reach
By Sean L. Malin, Fri., April 29, 2016
The 19th annual Cine Las Americas International Film Festival is fast approaching, and hardly two weeks before its May 4 opening night, its director, Jean Anne Lauer, was bushed. She and her programming team had whittled down their official selections from a multitude of Ibero-American countries – the fest includes films from Portugal and Spain, as well as the U.S. and Canada, and Latin America. The previous month had been particularly challenging, with Lauer's team negotiating a tight schedule while also searching for projects that "are not just entertaining, which is not to say that entertainment is not important," says Lauer. "When we look for films, they have to be quality first."
Since joining Cine Las Americas in 2009 as a programmer, Lauer has seen the annual fest grow with the city: "Austin is always changing, so the audience here also continues to change." This year's fest speaks to that evolution in that, as she notes, the films are so diverse that no real overall social, psychological, or aesthetic themes exist between them. Lauer points out that, when working with her programming team, Elena Bessire and Rebecca Morelo Jackson, "we sometimes tried to think of trends in the films that were coming in, but there weren't any, really." Perennial subjects – like the drug trade, genocide, or indigenous peoples' voices – have their places in the lineup. "When you're dealing with Latin American and Latino issues in your festival," Lauer notes, "such themes are basic inevitabilities."
What differentiates this event from its Ibero-, Latino-, and Latina-friendly counterparts all over the country is its prioritization of learned curation over ostentation; from a critical perspective, the official selections, from the award-winning international dramas to new releases, are some of the most internationally scattered of any festival in America. As Lauer explains, "Cine straddles all of it: from the entertainment to – I hate to say this – 'the tearjerker' ... we have everything in the middle." She points to movies like We Are Pregnant, a romantic-comedy in the This Is 40 vein from Spain's Juana Macias, and the Innu-Canadian thriller Le Dep, as two of many that blend elements of the crowd-pleaser with acclaim. Macias' last feature, for example, was a multiple nominee for the Goya, Spain's Academy Award.
Then there are the "international buzz titles," of which Lauer herself picks and programs for the festival each year. Attendees can expect some of the films to reflect the programmers' affinities for hybrid genres, independent production, and top-tier aesthetic quality. Of her own tastes, Lauer laughs, "I tend to go for the more experimental films ... when one is really good, I go after it." One of the more intriguing films she described, The Project of the Century, is a Cuban film about the country's attempt to build a nuclear power plant. Then there is the documentary on Salvador Allende, Beyond My Grandfather Allende, directed by his granddaughter, Marcia Tambutti Allende – a film that seems both emotionally vivid and psychologically complex. It's an impressive selection, and one to make cinephiles' mouths water.
Yet by occupying such a wide swath of genres, national origins, and budgets, the films of Cine Las Americas can be hard sells to the ever-growing Austin community. "We're still striving, like other niche festivals, to get butts in the seats for these films," says Lauer. As with the previous 18 years, the festival is hoping to tap into new audiences while maintaining what Lauer calls "its core: the folks who have gone from casual viewers to members of Cine Las Americas, all the while attending events throughout the year." Through them and other relationships with organizations like OUTsider and the Austin Film Society, Lauer says, "I would like to see us grow more and have wider reach."
