These Are the Must-See Latino Movies at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival
Raul Castillo and Evan Rosado appear in We The Animals by Jeremiah Zagar, an official selection at 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute. Photo by Zak Mulligan
In a city that seemingly hosts a film festival every weekend, the Tribeca Film Festival, now in its 17th year, remains a must for cinephiles. The 2018 feature film program includes 96 films from 103 filmmakers. And, amidst talks of gender disparity in the film industry, it’s heartening to see that of the 96 films, 46% of them are directed by women, the highest percentage in the festival’s history. “In a year that has reminded us more often of our divisions than our connections, this festival’s program embraces film’s unique power to overcome differences – that connecting with stories not our own is the road into our deeply programmed human capacity for empathy and understanding,” said Cara Cusumano, Tribeca’s Director of Programming.
Launching with Love, Gilda, a documentary on Saturday Night Live‘s Gilda Radner, the Tribeca Film Festival will also see films from recent Oscar winner Sebastian Lelio, all-around badass Tessa Thompson, Beatriz at Dinner‘s Miguel Arteta, and Looking‘s Raul Castillo among others. As always, the documentaries in this year’s lineup seem tailor-made for today’s political climate, with docs tackling border towns, the current president’s effect in a Midwestern mobile chapel, and, yes, even a short documentary titled The History of White People in America.
But while feature films remain the fest’s main attraction, Tribeca has slowly been expanding its roster. In addition to a slew of talks (including with directors Jason Reitman and Laura Poitras) and an ever-expanding TV program (including a sneak peek at the Antonio Banderas-starring Genius), audiences will be able to check out a number of immersive and Virtual Reality projects. That includes Angel Manuel Soto‘s Dinner Party which tells the incredible story of Betty and Barney Hill, an interracial couple who made the first report of a UFO abduction in America in 1961, and Nico Casavecchia and Martin Allais’ animated Battlescar, which centers on a Puerto Rican runaway who enters the world of 1970s punk.
With so much to see, we wanted to make sure you knew what films to seek out, so find below 10 films that showcase Latino talent both in front and behind the camera.
The Tribeca Film Festival runs April 18-29, 2018