Arts Alive San Antonio

By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor

By definition, film festivals present the new cinematic works but the 44^th CineFestival will start with an old movie, 30 years old, to be exact.

The film is “Blood in, Blood Out,” from 1993, a seminal work of the Chicano film cannon, directed by Taylor Hackford. The story was based on actual life experiences of the screenwriter, Jimmy Santiago Baca, and focuses on three young gang members from East Los Angeles who end up in very different situations as adults. The actors playing them are Jesse Borrego, Benjamin Bratt and Damian Chapa. The Borrego character becomes an artist, the character portrayed by Benjamin Bratt becomes a policeman and the third one, played by Chapa, ends up in prison.

The film will be screened on July 11, the first day of the fest that continues through Sunday.

“We have received so many entries this year that we decided to extend the festival by an additional day,” said festival director Eugenio Del Bosque. “Even after that, we still had to make some difficult decisions about the number of films to be screened.”

The “we” is a four-member selection committee, which, of course, includes De Bosque. “We were able to review everything that was submitted to the festival. We had to watch every film thoroughly, so we started in January with this process. We asked the reviewers to watch the movies alone, not to watch in the company of anyone else, including family, and not to talk about the films.”

Altogether, 312 entries were submitted. In fact, this year marks the second time that an extra day needed to be added to the fest. With growing popularity in the film industry, the festival that started with a Thursday-Sunday schedule, is now screening films Tuesday-Sunday. A substantial number of entries came from San Antonio filmmakers.

“A lot of them have a San Antonio character, for lack of a better term,” noted the director. “It may not be evident to all viewers but San Antonians will definitely see connections – the way characters talk, Westside themes, sports, gun violence, the places shown, and many details. Two San Antonio films focus on sports, one on wrestling and the other on boxing.”

Another batch of entries came from student filmmakers from UTSA and UIW, which will be shown in a separate Student Showcase.

As in the past, the 2023 festival will feature a considerable number of short films, in addition to feature films. And – to our surprise – we found out that only the shorts compete for the top awards.

“I would encourage everyone to come see the short films,” said De Bosque. “We put them together in clusters and the screening may be an hour-and-a half, but they are all different. You see five or six stories told by different storytellers.”

Among the feature films, De Bosque pointed out a few “highlights,”  starting with “Home is Somewhere Else,” an animated documentary from Mexico that tells the story of the Dreamers, people who were brought to the U.S. as children, and are now young adults facing uncertain immigration status. The film’s director, Carlos Hagerman, will be here to present his film, Saturday at 1:30 p.m.

“The stories in the film are difficult to take but they are also very beautiful, the way they are told,” noted De Bosque.

 Another highlight is “Moe,” which focuses on a man dying from AIDS, which features “a lot of talented actors from California,” some of whom – and the director, Jose Luis Valenzuela – will be in San Antonio to introduce their film to the festival’s audience,

De Bosque third choice was “Martinez,” a comedy about an older gentleman dealing with retirement, which has a lot of detail and nuance,” he said. The film is directed by Lorena Padilla.
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2023 CineFestival, July 11-July 16, at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, 1301 Guadalupe St., 78207; to see complete schedule visit www.guadalupeculturalarts.org. The opening screening is outdoors and free; You need tickets for the other screenings even if they are free. All-access passes are $40.; 210-271-3151.