DFF49 SHOWCASE SPANISH-LANGUAGE FILMS

Sofía Márquez/ El Comercio de Colorado

The Denver Film Festival returns for its 49th edition on October 22, bringing 11 days of international cinema, special screenings and appearances by actors and filmmakers.Among this year’s highlights are a tribute to Colombian-American actor John Leguizamo and a lineup of films from Mexico, Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries.

Leguizamo will receive the festival’s John Cassavetes Award on October 30, recognizing his contributions to independent cinema. He’ll accept the award in person and speak ahead of a screening of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, in which he plays Eumaeus, Odysseus’ loyal servant.

Leguizamo is very familiar with the artistic scene in Denver.  In 2017, he developed Latin History for Morons  at Comedy Works, a one-man show that eventually made its way to Broadway. The show was created because of Leguizamo’s frustration with how little Latino history his son was learning in school. In the show, he traces the contributions of Indigenous and Latino figures, from the Aztec and Inca empires to the American Revolution, questioning why so much of that history is absent from American classrooms.

“La Bola Negra” will be presented

The festival’s hispanic shows are aplenty and worth checking out. Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar returns with Bitter Christmas, a drama about a filmmaker whose personal life begins to blur with the story she’s creating. This marks his return to the big screen, bringing his common theme of exploring complicated families and desire and the messy parts of relationships.

From Mexico comes Campeón Gabacho, directed by Jonás Cuarón, alongside Fernando Eimbcke’s Flies. The latter follows a solitary retiree whose carefully ordered life is interrupted when a tenant moves in with his nine-year-old son, unbeknownst to her. His earlier films include Duck Season and Lake Tahoe.

Spain is also represented in one of the more anticipated films, with La Bola Negra, from directors Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo. Inspired by an unfinished work by Federico García Lorca, the film follows three gay men across different periods of Spanish history, tracing nearly a century of desire, repression and changing attitudes toward sexuality. Productions from Argentina and Costa Rica round out the festival’s Latin American selections, with The Match and Forever Your Maternal Animal, respectively.

DFF runs October 22 through November 1, with 129 films scheduled in various venues including the Sie FilmCenter, Ellie Caulkins Opera House and MCA Denver at the Holiday Theater. Tickets are on sale now, with a limited number of pay-what-you-can admissions available for only select screenings.

For showtimes, locations and tickets, visit denverfilmfestival.eventive.org.