Movies

Blood of My Blood

Chicago Latino Film Festival

April 3, 2008

The International Latino Cultural Center presents the 24th Chicago Latino Film Festival, which runs Friday, April 4, through Wednesday, April 16, at Landmark’s Century Centre; Northwestern Univ. Thorne Auditorium, 375 E. Chicago; Pipers Alley; River East 21; and smaller venues through the city. Tickets are $10, $9 for students, and $8 for ILCC members. Following are selected films screening through Thursday, April 10, all in English and/or subtitled Spanish. For a more information call 312-431-1330 or see latinoculturalcenter.org.

Always Yours This Spanish exercise in noir lite (2007) centers on the doomed romantic relationship between two lowlifes, Alfredo (Ruben Ochandiano) and Lola (Flora Martinez), who get sucked into a criminal intrigue at the jazz club where they work. To make some extra money, Alfredo starts running errands for a wealthy crime lord, not realizing that Lola was involved in the man’s sordid past. Writer-director Manuel Lombardero delivers all the ingredients for a compelling, character-driven crime story, but his anemic script doesn’t give the fine cast much to dig into. 109 min. (Reece Pendleton)  Sat 4/5, 9 PM, and Mon 4/7, 6:30 PM, Pipers Alley.

Blood of My Blood Christopher Zalla, a graduate of the film program at Columbia University, makes an impressive debut with this suspense feature about illegal immigrants and stolen identity. A young man (Jorge Adrian Espindola) crosses the border illegally with a letter of introduction to the father he never knew in Brooklyn; along the way he’s befriended and robbed by a hustler (Armando Hernandez) who uses the letter to insinuate himself with the father (Jesus Ochoa), a portly cook with gay impulses. Meanwhile the real son falls under the wing of a beautiful but greasy heroin addict (Paolo Mendoza in a standout performance). Zalla spent his early years bumping around Europe, Africa, and South America, and he has a good feel for the transience of identity. Also known as Padre Nuestro. 111 min. (JJ)  Sun 4/6, 4 PM, and Tue 4/8, 6:30 PM, Pipers Alley.

Clara’s Gaze An attractive biographer (Tamae Garateguy) approaches a writer in Buenos Aires (Gabriel Feldman) with questions about his moviemaking family, in particular his cross-eyed Swedish grandmother (Natalia Segre), who improbably became a siren of Argentinean silent cinema. Pablo Torre’s 2006 drama is a fictionalized riff on his own family: his father, Leopoldo Torre Nilsson, and grandfather, Leopoldo Torre Rios, were both prolific filmmakers. But he doesn’t seem to have learned much craft from either of them: his 1920s flashbacks lack any authentic period feel, and confusion results from actors playing multiple roles, often in bad wigs. 89 min. (AG) Sat 4/5, 6 PM, and Sun 4/6, 8:30 PM, Pipers Alley.

The Field of Stars The Cantabrian Mountains in northern Spain furnish the backdrop for this 2007 drama about a teenage cyclist (Oscar Abad); his headstrong sister (Marian Aguilera), a social worker at a nursing home; and a retired farmer and artist (Alvaro de Luna) who visits the home regularly to see the elderly woman who reared him (Mary Gonzalez). The old lady’s odious absentee sons want to deface her land with condos, while the sister, in a tedious story thread, is torn between two men she doesn’t love. Director Mario Camus (The House of Bernardo Alba) has an eye for the picturesque; the cycling scenes function as a travelogue. 115 min. (AG) Screening as part of the festival’s opening-night program, with a cocktail reception to follow. Tickets are $60, $50 for ILCC members.  Fri 4/4, 6 PM, River East 21.

Nonna’s Trip A Mexican widow with a fading memory and a weak heart (Ana Ofelia Murguia) insists on visiting her husband’s Italian birthplace before she dies. Knowing she could never survive such a journey, her family concocts an elaborate deception: a trip to a fake Mediterranean village, built nearby as a movie set and populated with local actors. Sebastian Silva, an assistant director on films as diverse as Babel and Titanic, makes a promising feature debut with this well-paced, bittersweet 2007 comedy. 90 min. (AG) Screening as part of the festival’s Noche Mexicana, which includes cocktails and mariachi music after the movie. Tickets are $60, $40 for ILCC members.  Wed 4/9, 6 PM, Northwestern Univ. Thorne Auditorium.

Sanky Panky This crass musical comedy from the Dominican Republic stars the annoying Fausto Mata as a loutish grocery-store owner whose desperate search for a sugar mommy takes him to a posh beach resort. Hired to entertain the guests’ children and forced to wear a chicken costume, he doesn’t have much luck with the ladies until he meets a sympathetic cutie from New Jersey. Writer-director Jose Pintor mines broad slapstick and class stereotypes for laughs but also relies heavily on Mata, who comes across like an extremely hostile Chris Tucker. Bring your earplugs. 111 min. (Reece Pendleton)  Wed 4/9, 9 PM, Landmark’s Century Centre.

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