[ENTREVISTA] – El “New York Latino Film Festival” llega a PUERTO RICO, hablamos con su fundador Calixto Chinchilla, y la directora de programacion Maria Akay del cine BORICUA, y de las ofertas cinematográficas que trae el #NYLFF
El “New York Latino Film Festival” (NYLFF) se complace en presentar su festival de cine insignia en el Caribbean Cinemas VIP, localizado en el Distrito T-Mobile en San Juan, Puerto Rico, del 31 de octubre al 2 de noviembre de 2024, auspiciado por la Autoridad Distrito del Convenciones de Puerto Rico.
Criticólogos:
How did you envision this idea of having this film festival and touring it around the US?
Calixto Chinchilla:
Well, we started next year it’s gonna be our 25th anniversary, so we started 25 years ago in New York in Spanish Harlem at the heart of, you know, the Puerto Rican community, there and there wasn’t anything for New York, you know, for Latino films celebrating us and the culture, and so I had the crazy idea of starting a festival that really educated the industry and educated filmmakers and the community as a whole to the power of Latino film, the importance of us seeing each other, you know, not only on the silver screen but the importance of us having, you know, executive positions of power at the studios and getting the studios to understand what we were producing. And so the festival has been growing and, you know, right now we are the premier Latinoo Festival in the United States, so to be here in Puerto Rico, is, you know, a big deal for us.
Criticólogos:
Which are the most important milestones of the festival so far?
Calixto Chinchilla:
Oh, wow. Well, making it 25 years. being over here, you know, we’ve been touring different cities, so, everybody, we’ve been fortunate to have a big fan base, so we’ve been in Miami, Chicago, now Puerto Rico. So being here is really important to us, you know.
Criticólogos:
Tells us a little about projects from the island and abroad that are premiering with this festival.
Calixto Chinchilla:
Well, Bruno Irizarry es boricua, vive aqui, it’s called Bella, and it’s a film that’s based in Puerto Rico, you know, about a family that’s trying to get children through IBF, and they end up adopting in COVID in Puerto Rico and then we have Once Upon a Time in the Caribbean directed by Rey Figueroa, a period piece a drama. We have a lot of Puerto Rican makers here, we have a short films block so we’re happy about that and all the filmmakers are gonna be here. and then, you know,
We got Emilia Perez from Netflix, you know, the big film from the Cannes Film Festival this year here, so we are really happy, you know, to bring new films. Films we didn’t play in New York, are exclusive here, so we’re really happy about that.
See the full interview below:
