Sydney Latin American Film Festival

From touching and personal tales, to saucy animations and exquisite examinations into the world around us, the 14th annual Sydney Latin American Film Festival (SLAFF) is back this September (4—11). Returning to the Dendy Opera Quays and Addison Road Picture House, with a special screening also taking place at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre on 21 September. The Festival will screen a specially curated program of 23 feature films and shorts, showcasing the very best in contemporary Latin American cinema.

The Festival opens with the Australian premiere of The Cotton Wool War. This touching coming of age tale follows 14-year old Dora who, raised in Germany, is sent to Brazil to visit her enigmatic grandmother, realising it’s a relocation not a vacation she desperately starts trying to find a way home. Along the way she discovers the beauty of Brazil and the incredible history of the women in her family.

The Opening Night Fiesta will kick on after the film screening with an epic Brazilian fiesta at the ever-trendy Argyle in The Rocks. Here the high energy sounds of For All Band and the Sydney Choro Club will be pumping in between sets by DJ Willie Sabor. Jam-packed with live dancers, delectable bites, drinks and percussion, this is a night out not to miss!

A highlight of this year’s program is Juan Caceres’ debut feature Perro Bomba. The film takes aim at the racism affecting Chile’s working class and immigrants’ who are suffering from laws born in the time of a xenophobic dictator Augusto Pinochet. These laws remain today and affect more than half a million immigrants. In the film, a Haitian immigrant is lynched by the media, disowned and displaced after taking a swing at a taunting construction foreman. Juan Caceres will be a guest at the festival and conduct a Q&A after the screening of his film.

SLAFF's fifth short film competition will present an evening of seven thought-provoking works about migration and climate change. From Mexico to Argentina these animations, documentaries and fiction shorts highlight important issues being faced by different Latin American countries.

Closing the festival is the heart-warming feature, Delfín. Eleven-year-old Delfín lives alone with his father in provincial Argentina. Over the course of a week the film captures Delfín’s daily routine of rising early to work, falling asleep in class and fending off the rent collector, until he discovers that a children's orchestra is being formed in the neighbouring village. Thus begins a moving adventure for him and his father that by the end of the week has the capacity to change the course of their lives. Following the screening of Delfín there will be a closing night party at The Argyle.

The 14th Sydney Latin American Film Festival will take place at the Dendy Opera Quays and Addison Road Picture House with a special screening at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre on Saturday 21 September.