Twenty-eight years of celebrating cinema from across the Americas and still going strong. This year’s festival opens with the local premiere of the Sundance award-winning documentary about America’s preeminent Chicano playwright, American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez, before a screening of his most well-known work as a filmmaker, musical biopic La Bamba, in 35mm. There'll be features from Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Argentina, and Peru, as well as dozens more shorts from across the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking world, all before the closing night film, Mexican political allegory Versalles. Also on the schedule are U.S.-based stories like Return of the Sacred Red Rock and Street Smart: Lessons From a TV Icon that lets Sonia Manzano, best known as Maria from Sesame Street, tell her life story in her own words. – Richard Whittaker
