OKCine Latino Film Festival celebrates culture, growth in its ninth year

About 300 people attended the ninth annual OKCine Latino Film Festival in southwest Oklahoma City's historic Capitol Hill district during the first weekend of March.

The OKCine Latino Film Festival, organized by the city's Calle Dos Cinco community, was held Saturday at the district's Yale Theater and Sunday at the Capitol Hill Library. For nearly a decade, the festival has promoted the cultural significance of Latino contributions to cinema, highlighting a community of Hispanic filmmakers and film lovers.

The event featured the work of local film directors including Ivan Barragan, Victor Caballero and Samuel Carrillo. Films from students with the OKCine Latino Youth Film Institute, having just completed its seventh class, were also highlighted, as well as international productions from Tonatiuh Garcia, Pablo Orta, Brian Rios and others.

"I really feel that having a Latino film festival for me, as a passion project, is to be able to have a platform for Latino filmmakers to have representation in the industry," said Rogelio Almeida, an Oklahoma City-based filmmaker who has helped organize and direct the event each year. "That's the beautiful thing about our film festival. We connect filmmakers and the audience all in one same place."

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Local filmmaker's documentary highlights maternal health amid pandemic

Carrillo's "Joy," the 50-minute documentary that kickstarted the festival's opening night, tells the true story of 38-year-old Maria Murillo, who experienced an unexpected pregnancy while also contracting COVID-19 during the height of the pandemic. Originally envisioning it as a short two-minute film, Carrillo, 24, expanded the project after realizing the severity of Murillo and her baby Ellie Joy Miranda's battle to survive warranted a much longer story.

"Being able to really take that risk of filming in the difficult times really paid off in the documentary," Carrillo said. "It helped a lot of pregnant women and people suffering during this pandemic understand that they're not alone, that there's other people that have suffered and are suffering the same situation they are. It's a great way to connect with the Hispanic community that sometimes feel they don't have a voice."

The family at the heart of the documentary, who are all now in good health, were invited to attend the screening, as well as members of the medical staff that took care of the family at their lowest moments.

"It was such a scary situation, but it's so good to see them come out the other side of it," said pediatrician Theresa Graif.

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International films focus on immigration, environmental issues

Several directors flew in to Oklahoma to attend the screenings of their work. First-time visitors to the state included Sienna Serrano, of California, whose five-minute short "A Bear-able Life" uses a curly, plush teddy bear gifted by her mother as a visual metaphor for Serrano's experience growing up and "feeling out of place" as a Latina in a predominantly Asian American community.

"I thought, that brown bear looks like me, so I said I'm going to take this and see what I can do with it," Serrano said. "And it's so important to have my film out there because ... at the end of the day, if I have one person that it connects to and gives them hope, it lets them know it's possible to deal with those feelings and that you're not alone."

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Rios, 34, traveled from Puerto Rico to attend the screening of his 15-minute directorial debut "Lili," which he said he conceived as a response to the immigration crisis and family separation. "Lili" fictionalizes the journey of a father and a daughter attempting to cross the border in hopes of a safer life.

"I hope people draw from it empathy for the immigrant situation and immigrants coming from Central America and from other countries into the States, because it's not an easy situation to be in," Rios said. "And I wanted to make sure I could create a face to the problem, to have it not just be numbers, statistics."

To help the story resonate even more, Rios drew from his own life while making "Lili," and the daughter in the film struggles with being a late-talker much like Rios' daughter did at age 3.

"It was always a worry, and I couldn't even imagine being in this (migration) situation that these people are in with that (late-talking) situation going on, so that's what really inspired 'Lili' a lot," Rios said.

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Film students explain their own work, career aspirations

Festival organizers also run a yearly class called the OKCine Latino Youth Film Institute, for which high school and young college students can apply to gain hands-on experience with script writing, camerawork, acting and editing.

Two, six-minute films created by the latest class, a family drama titled "After the Fact" and a horror short called "Don't Look Back," were shown during the festival. Student filmmakers were invited to sit alongside industry professionals for a panel as they explained the creative processes behind their projects.

"I loved it," said Fabian Salcedo, a film student at both The University of Oklahoma and Moore-Norman Technology Center who has also recently decided to take journalism classes. "It was a lot of fun. I got to meet a lot of young filmmakers who were willing to help me with projects I had."

Salcedo said the connections he's made through the program will help him on upcoming projects.

"I get to network even further with the people in my community who just love telling stories," Salcedo said. "Whether that's real or fantasy, it's all the same."

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Angel Allen, a senior at Norman High School and former student during last year's film institute class, also hopes to study film at OU. She said although she wasn't able to participate in the film institute this year, she wanted to volunteer to help at the festival as an expression of gratitude.

"It was very rewarding, and we made a film and it really meant a lot to me," Allen said. "I knew that I definitely had to be a part of the film festival even if I couldn't be part of the institute, because OKCine has really helped me as a filmmaker be where I am, so I want to give back."

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC Latino movie festival awards local, student, international filmmakers