Reviews
Septiembres/Septembers
Written by Rich Vázquez
I attended the opening night festivities of Cine Las Americas film festival. Septiembres was the opening film and while it promised to be a documentary about a music contest in prison, it turned out to be a lot more. Most of the audience appeared to expect something more like American Idol with a lot more ins and outs of the competition. The film itself is sandwiched between two Septembers, the time of year the competition takes place.
Carles Bosch, the director, said the film actually started like an American Idol favor for the participating inmates - taking the prison competition and making it look as big as possible for the participants to be able to send their families a DVD. After that, though, the film was born and grew into an intimate portrayal of various kinds of confined love within the co-ed prison and outside the walls. The only kind of love missing was the brutal expectations Americans of come to expect from prison life.
Read more: Septiembres/Septembers
No Comments.Discuss this item on the forums. (0 posts)
How to Be a Chicana Role Model
Written by Rich Vázquez
I've read several LatCrit books about life on the hyphen, on the slash and on the border. They tend to take themselves very seriously and want to conquer the whole question of Latino identity. Many of them are dry, whimpering accounts of the last 500 years of creating the Latino people. Others tell poignant autobiographical tales of love, life and identity lost. With the two works by Michele Serros, we see that the question of identity and life are always growing and changing. And they both can finally be funny as hell.
Read more: How to Be a Chicana Role Model
No Comments.Discuss this item on the forums. (0 posts)
