Mexico

CHICAGO – The 38th Chicago Latino Film Festival (CLFF) wraps up on Sunday, May 1st, 2022, but not before premiering a locally based film entitled “Bye Bye Chicago.” The playwright Roma Díaz makes his fiction feature film debut as writer/co-director alongside co-director Enrique Gaona, Jr.

CHICAGO – A hybrid spring film festival – both in-person and online – kicks offs with the 38th edition of the Chicago Latino Film Festival (CLFF). The Opening Night Panamanian film “Plaza Catedral,” will screen April 21st, 2022, at the Drive-In theater, ChiTown Movies. Click CLFF for details.

CHICAGO – Clint Eastwood’s return to the western is an amiable-but-relativiely-minor mosey south of the border. The 91-year-old doesn’t embarrass himself, but this small stakes story is far from Clint’s finest hour. In “Cry Macho” Eastwood is a former rodeo cowboy and horse trainer named Mike who has run into hard times after a devastating heartbreak.

CHICAGO – “Bad Boys For Life” shows that maybe Will Smith isn’t too old for this kind of sh*t, but Martin Lawrence certainly is. This third installment comes 17 years after “Bad Boys II,” and 25 years after the original film unleashed director Michael Bay on an unsuspecting public.

CHICAGO – She calls her style of grindhouse and gore films “Tex Mex,” and you won’t find a better femme fatale producing a better debut film in that genre. Director Gigi Saul Guerrero makes her feature film debut with “Culture Shock,” which will premiere for the Hulu streaming service on July 4th, 2019, part of their “Into the Dark” series of horror films through Blumhouse Television.

CHICAGO – She calls her style of grindhouse and gore films “Tex Mex,” and you won’t find a better femme fatale producing a better debut film in that genre. Director Gigi Saul Guerrero gave Chicago audiences a sneak preview – at the Cinepocalypse Film Festival at the Music Box Theatre – of her debut “Culture Shock,” which will premiere for Hulu on July 4th, 2019, part of their “Into the Dark” series of horror films through Blumhouse Television.

CHICAGO – One of the more pleasant surprises of the 2018 film year was the rise of the connectively expressive film “Roma,” written and directed by Alfonso Cuarón. Not only is it nominated for Best Picture, Best Foreign Language Film and Best Director at the 91st Academy Awards, but the two lead actresses – Yalitza Aparicio and Maria de Tavira – are nominated for Best Actress and Supporting Actress. Jon Lennon Espino, contributor at HollywoodChicago.com, interviewed both actresses last October at the 54th Chicago International Film Festival.

CHICAGO – One of the buzz films at the 54th Chicago International Film Festival (CIFF) is “Roma,” the latest from Academy Award winning director Alfonso Cuarón (“Gravity”). This personal and autobiographical film is winning kudos for its beauty and authenticity, as well as its setting in 1970s Mexico City. The film features Mexican actors Marina de Tavira and Yalitza Aparicio.

CHICAGO – The jewel of Chicago’s cinema community, the Gene Siskel Film Center, will have a latin flair on Saturday, September 22nd, 2018, when its “Panorama Latinx” outreach program presents the Cortadito Short Film Festival. Short films representing Argentina, Columbia, Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Venezuela will be presented, in an eight shorts program. For more details and tickets, including the list of films, click here.

CHICAGO – We don’t really know what is going on at the Mexican border, nor if we’re lucky understand the desperation in crossing over. “Sicario: Day of the Soldado” is a cynical and sad film, but gives a bit of perspective on the this ongoing situation, especially as it deflates the current presidential administration.