Dominican International Film Festival & Cinemateca Dominicana Announce Spanish-Language Film Program at This Year's Festival

Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic – November 2, 2007 – The Third Annual Dominican International Film Festival has announced the films selected for Cine Roma, their annual Spanish-language film program brought to you by Jet Blue and Crocs Shoes. This year, the program is excited to include a series of 10 short Dominican films sponsored by Cinemateca Dominicana, a cultural organization that promotes the culture and history of the Dominican Republic and overseen by our Spanish-language film curator Armando Guareno. This Spanish-language program continues the film festival’s commitment to showcasing films from Spanish-speaking countries and by Spanish-speaking directors and producers. This category is unique to the Dominican International Film Festival and an important part of the film festival’s mission to bring notoriety to the independent films of this region of the world.

The Spanish-language film program will consist of six feature length films from a variety of Spanish-speaking countries including Chile, Mexico, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. The program will conclude with a showcase of short films exclusively from the Dominican Republic entitled, The Way We Are.

The films featured in this year’s Spanish-language program include:

*Pretendiendo (Pretending) – Chile, dir. Claudio Dabed
When Amanda is humiliated by her lover and fired from her job, she decides to move to a new town and start over, but this time by making herself up as an ugly woman in an effort to be taken seriously. When she meets Marcelo, a cocky new co-worker and known womanizer, she decides to take her act one step further by playing both her ugly persona and her real one, whom she calls Helena, against him. But juggling a double life proves harder than she had imagined and when real feelings begin to develop between Marcelo and Helena as well as Marcelo and Amanda, she finds her comedy of errors has turned into an odd and sexy love triangle.

*La Nina en la Piedra (Girl on the Stone) – Mexico, dir. Maryse Sistach and José Buil
Set in a small town near Mexico City, this magical story of adolescent love chronicles the love and revenge of Gabino on his charming but vain classmate, Maty. Gabino’s broken heart from Maty and the consequences of their actions lead them to a pit guarded by an ancient magic stone hid there by Gabino and his father.


*El Clown – Puerto Rico, dir. Pedro Adorno Irizarry and Emilio Rodríguez Vázquez
Xavier del Monte is a small-town circus clown whose ambition takes him to the big city. There, an ad agency selects him as the Hot Dog Clown, the media character of a fast-food campaign that appeals to children and mothers. Success changes his life. He buys a new car, moves into an uptown apartment, enjoys shopping and falls in love. But the agency forbids him from exposing his real self to the public: what is important to the campaign is the Hot Dog Clown, not the artist that makes it come alive.

*Espejismo (Illusion) – Dominican Republic, dir. Víctor Ramírez
Two young people fall in love in spite of the conflict it awakes within their families. The stormy relationship consumes their lives and relationship and causes misunderstandings, emotional ruptures, internal struggles and searches for understanding. As time passes, they realize they are no longer compatible. The audience watches the process these two characters go through and the complexity of their personalities, their self-destructive passion and ultimately the resolution of their doomed relationship.

*American Visa – Bolivia, dir. Juan Carlos Valdivia
Set in the lowlands of Bolivia, American Visa is a riveting film that portrays the difficulty foreigners undergo when applying for a visa in post-9/11 United States. Based on a novel by Juan Recacochea, American Visa is a highly unpredictable drama with cunning twists and a contemporary look at how politicians and governments illegitimately moderate the flow of immigration. Filmed with intricate detail and vibrant cinematography, this film will make you question why the main character, played by veteran Mexican actor Damiam Bichir, wants to immigrate to the United States in the first place. After he is denied a visa at the Bolivian consulate, Bichir’s plan to live with his son in Miami falls apart only to reveal that his character is not in search of the American Dream but a companion that will care for him in old age.

*¿Qué Pasa Después La Coca? (Coca Lives) – Bolivia, dir. Roberto Lanza
What are the real motives and consequences behind the US campaign to wipe out the coca leaf culture? There are 70 thousand families today in Bolivia whose lives depend exclusively on cultivating the ancestral coca leaf. This practice has been considered illegal now for twelve years, and the U.S. monitor applying of the law and exert economic and military pressure. The Bolivian government militarized the Chapare zone and embarked on a plan to eradicate coca plantations by force, having failed in a plan for alternative development that attempted to substitute coca for other agricultural products. Although they were promised, the incentives to diversify the harvest were never applied. The great danger today is the Colombia-zation of the conflict with the sudden rise of a guerrilla to defend the right to plant coca, in accordance with religious, medical, and social tradition that sharpened the culture of Bolivia and of neighboring countries. We must discover the real reasons for this confrontation and what interests lie hidden behind the agents involved.

The Dominican Republic short films featured in The Way We Are include:

Las Luciernagas, dir. Roberto Minervini
La Carta, dir. Francisco Alberto Rodríguez
La Enemiga, dir. Francisco Alberto Rodríguez
A Cien Mil, dir. Amauris Pérez
Amor Animal, dir. Robert Lizardo
Frente al Mar, dir. José Vásquez Grin
El Campeón, dir. Rafael Madera
La Ruta, dir. David Cavada
El Triste Precio del Olvido, dir. David Cavada
Bajo la Sombra de la Sangre, dir. José Gómez

The film curator and programmer for this year’s Spanish-language film program is Armnado Guareno, a native Dominican with a wide knowledge and expertise in the film industry. As the Founder and Executive Director of LaCinemaFe Film Festival, Guareno has a special interest and expertise in the Spanish-language film industry. Other accomplishments and experiences include expert nominator for Rockefeller Fellowship Film & Media Arts Program, screening panelist for Oscars’ Academy Awards for film students, guest curator for special programs for a variety of film festivals throughout the world and film consultant for cultural organizations such as MoMA and Cinemateca Dominicana. Currently, Guareno is the Associate Producer on the feature film Red Passport and Producer Consultant of the feature documentary Maestro.

Passes to this year’s Dominican International Film Festival and special travel packages are available for purchase online through the film festival’s website. For more information, please visit www.dominicaninternationalfilmfestival.com.

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About Dominican International Film Festival
The Dominican International Film Festival is a young, rapidly growing festival dedicated to promoting independent filmmaking. The Festival separates itself from other film festivals by embracing the Latin American flavor through screenings of Latin American feature films, promoting renowned Dominican stars and its dedication to providing live Dominican entertainment. The 2007 Festival will include a variety of screenings of some of the year’s top films, panels and workshops that feature award-winning actors, writers and directors, VIP parties and live entertainment. This year’s Festival will also recognize two award recipients in the following categories: The 2007 Rising Star Award and 2007 Humanitarian Award. The Dominican International Film Festival is produced by Elliott, the dynamic parent company of Sun Village Resort & Spa and the new Maxim Bungalows in the Dominican Republic and Vincent Partners, a NY-based marketing and communications company.