Singers, Survivors, and Social Justice: 9 Latino Movies to Check Out at SXSW

Imagine being a part of a sports club during a tragic accident that sees most of your teammates killed in a deadly airplane crash. This is the situation the Brazilian Chapesoense football team finds itself in when it loses all but three of its players in a serious accident on November 28, 2016. Hoping to show how an entire city handles immense tragedy, directors point their cameras on the families of the deceased, the three men who survived the crash and new members who have stepped in to fill the roster spots on the team. Should the new team move on or are the memories connected to their deceased teammates too significant to put by the wayside?

Considered by many as the first musician to bring salsa music to an international audience, Panamanian singer, songwriter, and actor Ruben Blades is highlighted in a documentary that spans his 50-year career and gives audiences an in-depth look at his musical and political aspirations. (Does he really want to run for president of Panama?). The doc attempts to help Blades decide what the term legacy actually means. Blades has won 17 Grammys, earned a law degree from Harvard University, and has starred in such films as the 1988 comedy drama The Milagro Beanfield War, 2000’s drama All the Pretty Horses, and 2016’s biopic Hands of Stone. He currently stars on AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead.

Keeping their longstanding traditions alive by distilling agave in Mexico, generations of families have many reasons they continue to carry on the legacy of transforming the plant into a “sacred spirit.” From the bio-diverse landscapes of Jalisco to Oaxaca, the film follows the journey of three rural agave producers as they work from pure ambition to protect a perennial that is used to create tequila and mezcal. The documentary, which delves into the relationship between the plant and its people and explores its rich cultural heritage and history, is narrated by actor Damián Alcázar (The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian).

Adapted from a graphic novel memoir by Colombian-Ecuadorian cartoonist Paola Gaviria (aka Power Paola), the black and white, Spanish-language animated film features Paola (voiced by María Cecilia Sánchez), an exceptional and independent young girl who grew up between Ecuador and Colombia and is trying to find her place in the world. But growing up in a traditional Colombian family with an estranged priest as a father, a psychic as a mother and two older sisters, gives Paola a unique perspective on life, which shapes her personality. It is reported that this coming-of-age, adult-themed animation contains approximately 5,000 individual drawings created by Gaviria.

Take a tour through Cuba with filmmakers T.G Herrington and Danny Clinch as they uncover the musical roots of Ben Jaffe, a New Orleans jazz band leader and tuba player and attempt to discover how he is connected the country’s indigenous music, which gave birth to the music he now knows and loves. The trip came after President Obama lifted restrictions on the communist country, which included travel. Making their way through Cuba, the crew meets up with iconic musicians. According to Jaffe, the trip inspired him so much, he and his New Orleans jazz group recorded a new album based on their experience.

Six veterans from the Falklands War, a war that lasted 74 days in 1982, reunite to tell their stories, reminisce about old memories and make a film about their experience fighting in a battle that saw more than 900 British and Argentinian soldiers die. In the experimental documentary, three British and three Argentine vets come together to reenact stylized battle scenes from the war from inside an abandoned building and to think about the repercussions that are felt by the men 35 years later and the cultural impact it left on both countries, which includes a number of film and television productions.

After stepping into battle during the 1979 Sandinistas Revolution in Nicaragua and leading combat and social reform to reshape their country, a group of female rebel troops returns to their home country almost 40 years later to help transform their society’s idea of feminism and to face gender violence and their own government head on. Through these untold true stories, director Jenny Murry explores the work of the democratic socialist political party and how they were able to seize power over the Somoza dynasty and expose their revolutionary government’s suppression of women’s rights. With a strong voice, these women refuse for their history to be forgotten.

Comedy actress and fake author Kika K (Tatá Werneck) is looking for happiness but doesn’t seem to have luck on her side. Sure, she’s famous and beautiful, has millions of adoring fans, and is about to star in a new soap opera, but she’s also suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder and trying to keep a lie from spreading too quickly. When her manager surprises Kika by telling her that she has written book, something she has actually not done, she must pretend the book is hers even after the real author begins to send her mysterious messages that plunge her into an existential crisis.

From the director and producers of The Seven Five comes Operation Odessa, a true crime thriller about a Russian mobster, a Miami playboy, and a Cuban spy who teamed up to sell a nuclear submarine to a Colombian drug cartel. A gangster epic that hopscotches from Brooklyn to Miami and Cali to Moscow, the documentary tells the story of three friends who set out to hustle the Russian mob, the Cali cartel, and the DEA for the score of a lifetime.