review

CLFF #8: The Dog, My Father and Us/Nosotros, mi papá y el perro + Festival Wrap Up

Including a few stats....

It's that time folks. After a week and a half, the Chicago Latino Film Festival comes to a close. Ya girl has been busy and at the festival nearly every night, and it's been a blast. Soon, I'll wax poetic about how important festivals like this one are, but for now, let's just dig into our wrap-up.

First, let's start with a review of the closing film...

The Dog, My Father and Us/Nosotros, mi papá y el perro
Directed by Pablo Arturo Suárez

Ecuador 🇪🇨

The festival ended on a light note with the 90-minute Ecuadorian sophomore feature from Pablo Arturo Suárez, The Dog, My Father and Us. This movie is a real meat-and-potatoes family dramedy about a man facing a midlife crisis. By that measure, it is extremely watchable. I had a nice time with it and got a few laughs in. It hearkened back to a time where I would watch Dan in Real Life and have a satisfying if uneventful experience. Suárez is an adept filmmaker with a good sense of comedic timing, and this was enough to make me interested in seeing his first film, An Ocean between Us. Unfortunately, there's not much else to say about this one. It doesn't have anything new to say about family dynamics, grief, or middle-aged men in low-stakes peril, and even those low stakes aren't particularly novel (professor in a relationship with a student, cantankerous dad's health is declining, man doesn't understand his son and losing the spark with his wife). It is not underwritten as much as it is simply slight. Alejandro Fajardo does a good job as the lead Sebastían, but the true star is José Ignacio Donoso who plays the irascible, titular "father." Donoso has a pretty extensive theatre background, and that seasoned ability really shines through a character that could otherwise be two-dimensional. There's a version of the film that is from the father's perspective that would be more interesting, especially with Donoso as the lead rather than a supporting character.

Perhaps that speaks to the movie's greatest weakness—small moments of quirky specificity generate the most interest. The father's frequent visits to a porn theater, for example, and the loose community between the regulars there. Or the moments when we get a sense of who Sebastían's brother Pedro (Stefano Bajak) is outside of a disappointment who is a little woo-woo. Or even the son Tomás' (Esteban González) apparently successful Let's Play videos on YouTube. These details are inherently richer than the kitchen-sink script allows them to be, and I'd love to see what Pablo Arturo Suárez produces when he gives a film over to more of these oddball details or moments of absurdity.

Now, let's get into some festival stats:

Over 12 days of the festival, I saw:

15 features and 9 shorts from 17 countries, including...

🇦🇷 Argentina (1 short); 🇧🇴 Bolivia (1 feature); 🇧🇷 Brazil (1 short); 🇨🇱 Chile (1 feature); 🇨🇴 Colombia (1 feature, 1 short); 🇩🇴 Dominican Republic (1 feature); 🇪🇨 Ecuador (1 feature); 🇭🇳 Honduras (1 feature); 🇲🇽 Mexico (1 feature, 2 shorts); 🇵🇦 Panama (1 feature, 1 short); 🇵🇾 Paraguay (1 feature); 🇵🇪 Peru (3 features); 🇵🇷 Puerto Rico (1 feature, 1 short); 🇪🇸 Spain (1 feature); 🇺🇸 USA (1 short); 🇺🇾 Uruguay (1 feature); and 🇻🇪 Venezuela (1 feature).

(These numbers are based off each film's primary country, but there are many co-productions that span several of these countries, in addition to other countries in Europe)

Additionally, I saw:

📽️ 8 films directed or co-directed by women (4 features and 4 shorts)

📽️ 3 documentaries

📽️ 3 animated or partially animated films (2 features and 1 short)

And every watch was a premiere:

🏙️ 14 Chicago premieres (13 features and 1 short)

🇺🇸 3 USA premieres (3 shorts)

🌎 4 North American premieres (2 features and 2 shorts)

🌐 3 World Premieres (3 shorts)

Remember folks, some of the most interesting worldwide cinema can be accessed in your backyard. You just have to come to it.