story and photo by
LEO E. LAURENCE, J.D.
Copyright © 2012 by Leo E. Laurence for Zenger’s
Newsmagazine • All rights reserved
PHOTO: Glenn Heath
The real star
behind the internationally respected San Diego Latino Film Festival is
unquestionably the affable Ethan van Thillo, the festival’s founder and
executive director.
“Every year we
pick a country to celebrate, like Chile or México. This year we are celebrating
a whole showcase on U.S.-Latino films, van Thillo explained in an exclusive
interview for Zenger’s.
“There are an
amazing number of films that come to us,” van Thillo reported. For this year’s festival, which took
place from March 8 through 18, “we received over 600 in our selection process,”
he said.
Budget
A huge operation
like the Latino Film Festival, where 165 movies are screened in six theatres in
11 days, costs lots of money to produce.
It’s also a
logistical nightmare. The trick is to allow large audiences to leave one
screening without colliding with the mass of people arriving to see the next
one.
This film
festival is produced by an army of volunteers organized by the staff of the
Media Arts Center in North Park, headed by van Thillo.
The Media Arts
Center does lots more than produce the
film festival. They also train
kids in the barrio to produce
movies, and have state-of-the-art equipment.
“Every year it’s
a challenge to get corporate sponsors, critical to the Center’s budget,” van
Thillo added.
“That’s why we
need people to attend. We need people to come out and buy tickets. About half
of our budget comes from the ticket sales.
“The budget for
the festival has been the same for the past few years. We will spend close to $250,000 to
$300,000 to put this on.”
At the halfway
point in the festival, the executive director said ticket sales were “strong”
this year.
This Year is Better!
“What makes this
year better (than last year) is that we have really expanded our showcase programming,”
van Thillo explained.
“A key
difference is El Mundo Estraño, a show
case for science fiction films and horror movies,” explained Glenn Heath, the assistant
programmer for the festival.
One movie
promoted as a horror film, Extrterrestre, was
really a comical farce that drew more laughter than fear.
“Our country of
focus is the United States this year,” explained Heath.
“We are
showcasing the strong work that is going on by U.S. Latinos.
“We are also
doing a “Latinos on TV” showcase because
there are so many Latino actors on mainstream, American television,” Heath
said.
Diversity
“Diversity in
programing meaning we’re trying to show as many different audiences to reveal
underrepresented cultures, and show as much as we can in the form of fresh
filmaking talent with different perspectives,” Heath explained.
Diversity is
really big at this festival, where you can see dozens of movies that don’t
feature guns and explosions as Hollywood is notorious for producing.
Of the 165 being
screened this year, there was only one — that depicted misconduct by a U.S.
Marine — which this author (a civilian volunteer with the U.S. Marine Corps in
San Diego) disliked.
Another movie, El
Sueño de Ivan, had a powerful story of a
teenage soccer team that went up against a “pro” team. The kids almost won, but they captured
this viewer’s heart.
Most of the
films shown in the festival are by independent filmmakers and there are no guns
or explosions, as Hollywood regularly produces.
