Mexican Film Night

Bay Street Film Festival will be holding a film appreciation night for Mexico at the Paramount Theatre on Thursday April 8^th for two showings one at 7 the other at 9. The reason for the film night is to raise money and funds so that interested film students can travel to this years Monterrey International Film Festival (MIFF). As you might be aware we had the Director of the MIFF here in Thunder Bay during the Bay Street Festival and we wish to continue to build our exchange of people, culture and talents.

The first film that will show at 7pm is Al Ortro Lado (In the Other Side)

Al otro lado is a 2004 Mexican film directed byGustavo Loza. The film follows the story of three children, one from Mexico, Cuba, and Morroco, as they attempt to deal with realities of immigration in their societies. The film won three awards at the Lleida Latin-America Film Festival in 2006, including Best Film and the Audience Award;Vanessa Bauche won best actress at the festival for her performance. Al otro lado was also the Mexcian Canidate for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the78th Academy Awards, but was not selected as one of the final five nominees.

Our second feature (9pm same night) is considered to be a “Golden Era” Mexican classic. Pueblerina is a 1949 Mexican drama film directed by Emilio Fernandez. It was entered into the 1949 Cannes Film Festival. The synopsis of the film is 
Aurelio comes home after serving time for revenge for the rape of his beloved Paloma at the hands of Julio Gonzalez. Upon arrival he learns that his mother has died and the people Paloma lives in exile with her son, the result of rape. Aurelio marry for Paloma and forget the past, but the evil brother Julio and Ramiro are not willing to leave them alone.

Both films have been generously provided by the Mexican Embassy in Ottawa to help further our goals of building a film exchange between Canada and Mexico. If you are interested in learning about Mexican Film, hearing about how you could attend the 2010 MIFF in August, then please attend. Dr. Batia Stolar, English Professor at Lakehead University will introduce the films. For further information please email; pmorralee@morvision.on.ca.