Tulipanes Latino Art & Film Festival unveils film line-up 

The 7th annual Tulipanes Latino Art & Film Festival in Holland, Michigan (Aug. 30-Sept. 2, 2007) will host 16 films, including features, documentaries, shorts, and animations. This year’s films were selected by committee. The National City 2007 Tulipanes Film Award winners will be announced on Tuesday, August 28. Films competed for Best Feature, Best of Show, Best Educational, Best Documentary, Best Short, and Best Animation.

To be considered for acceptance, films must either be directed/produced by a Latino or about Latino issues directed/produced by a non-Latino. To learn more about the films, including show times, and other areas of interest, visit www.tulipanes.org. All films are free of charge and include:

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2007 Feature Film Line-up

Canta María: Northeastern Brazil is at war during the 1930s and outlaws called “cangaceiros” plunder and kill in the name of justice. Lampião is the most feared of them all. María and her parents, living on a farm near in a small village, offer Lampião's gang shelter. As a result, they are attacked and María’s parents are killed. She meets and marries Filipe, but their marriage will be tested when his nephew, Coriolano, develops an attraction to her. The story of Filipe and Coriolano’s love for María is full of twists and turns and has an unexpected ending.

El Clown: Xavier del Monte is a small-town circus clown whose ambition takes him to the big city. 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 and he moves into an uptown apartment, buys a new car, enjoys shopping and falls in love. But the ad agency forbids him from exposing his true self to the public. At the top of his success, Xavier feels empty deep inside and does not know why. Now he will have to choose between affluence and happiness.

El  Cimarrón: El Cimarrón, is a love story about a young African couple that takes place during the slavery era at the turn of the nineteenth century. Violently seized from their African homeland, these youngsters arrived in chains in crowded, sweltering cargo holds aboard Spanish vessels destined to a Caribbean island to be sold as slaves. Eventually, they are both acquired by a malevolent Spanish landholder. After several futile attempts to escape, Marcos finally wins his freedom and returns to liberate his beloved Carolina and many other slaves.

Padre Nuestro (Mature Audiences Only): Caco is not your average father. Stubborn and irrepressible, he is dying of an incurable and unrevealed disease. Before passing on, however, the old man decides to flee the hospital where he is held against his will to reunite with his daughter, two sons and the wife he abandoned years ago for another woman. This funny and poignant road movie about a flawed, and all-too human, man who sacrificed family for selfish pursuits, speaks profoundly about love and relationships in modern day Latin America.

2007 Documentary Film Line-up

Asalto al Sueño: Thousands of people leave their impoverished Central American countries to get into the United States. By crossing the Northern border of Guatemala into México they’re embarking on one of the most dangerous migration routes in the world. In a small border town in the farthest South of México migrants try to jump on a freight train that shall carry them to the US-border. But hardly anybody manages to make the 5,000 km trip. On the outset of their journey they get mugged by youth gangs and fall prey to corrupt border officials. They fall exhausted from the train or get arrested in large-scale raids by the Mexican migration police and army, who jail them for days and deport them. Equipped only with a small digital camera the director sets off to this small border region.

At Highest Risk: Just as the rivers of the Andes mountains twist and coil in a curious maze, so does the grave situation of Peruvian women’s health care. Within the past decade, the Andean women in Perú have faced a massive sterilization campaign, exorbitant fines for homebirths, remnants of a deadly civil war, and the second highest maternal death rate in South America. Yet, as they have for centuries, the Quechua and Aymara people are fighting to preserve their traditions, beliefs, and integrity. Through the compelling story of one Andean woman, Judyth Aguero Vega, we see the horrors and triumphs of Perú’s volatile health care situation.

Ausangate: This film documents the lives of Quechua people who live around Ausangate, a sacred peak in southeastern Perú. It is based on anthropological research conducted over twenty years and reveals how the weavers make textiles encoded with symbolic images that reinforce ancestral beliefs during rituals and in everyday life. Four Quechua people’s stories are told against a backdrop of high Andean lakes and mountains showing a harsh existence possible only through a strong symbiotic relationship to their alpacas and llamas. From these animals they gain food, pelts, dried dung for fuel, transport for goods, and yarn for clothing. They maintain a deep integrity through their interconnectedness with the natural forces and their ritual relationships to Ausangate, and they still organize their labor and social relationships through the Inca social practices of ayni and ayllu.

Cartoneros: Cartoneros follows the paper recycling process in Buenos Aires from the trash pickers who collect paper informally through middlemen in warehouses, to executives in large corporate mills. The process exploded into a multimillion dollar industry after Argentina's latest economic collapse. The film is both a record of an economic and social crisis and an invitation to audiences to rethink the value of trash.

Everyone Their Grain of  Sand: This award-winning documentary reveals the struggles of the citizens of Maclovio Rojas in Tijuana, México as they battle the state government’s attempts to evict them from their homes to make way for multi-national corporations seeking cheap land and labor. Filmmaker Beth Bird followed the fiercely determined residents for three years as they persistently petitioned the state for basic services like running water, electricity and pay for their teachers, only to be met with bureaucratic stonewalling. Eventually, several community leaders are targeted for persecution, and one is arrested while others are forced into hiding. Balancing these stories of hardship, Bird also captures intimate scenes of daily life in Maclovio Rojas, revealing hard-won triumphs such as the building of a school by hand and the graduation of an elementary school class. This compelling and ultimately inspiring documentary is an eye-opening look at the human cost of globalization and a moving testament to the power of grassroots activism.

Other People’s Children: Other People’s Children is an intimate, eye-opening look at the lives of three immigrant women: Lupe, Mimi, and Claudia, who work as nannies in New York City. The challenges they face are as diverse as their stories. From communication mishaps to workplace injustice, missing their kids to immigration problems, each of them has a different perspective on the world of domestic work. But they share the same hope as millions of other immigrants in America- to provide a better future for themselves and their families.

Shadow of the House: The documentary is about looking closely. Filmed over several years, it is an intimate portrait of photographer Abelardo Morell, revealing the mystery and method of his artistic process. The narrative skips across time and space from his early childhood in Cuba to his status as a world-renowned photographer. The film explores his daily working life as an artist and his eventual return to Cuba after 40 years of living in exile. Shadow of the House uncovers the deep layers of a man who is pushed to confront his past and his familial allegiances as it explores his unique artistic vision.

Subtango, The Spirit of Tango: A journey to the Buenos Aires underground tango culture, where the elusive soul of tango is to be found. Even after a century of history, after enshrinement as the national music, after rampant commercialization and packaging for export, the tango still speaks to the Argentine soul. Subtango shows how tango music, dance, art and poetry are an essential part of the emotional expression of regular people, featuring the gamblers, ramblers and barroom prophets of the Buenos Aires night, playing weather-beaten accordions and singing old tangos of heartbreak and resentment. Through interviews with the citizens of this subterranean world, the film expands on the tango's lugubrious aesthetic, the origins of its melodramatic lyrics in the laments of alienated immigrants, the sensuality and profound communication of its dance.

2007 Short Film Line-up

The Dancing Chickens of Ventura Fabian: This short film is a lively, bilingual, musical video visit with master woodcarver Ventura Fabian and his family in their small rural village of San Martin Tilcajete, nestled in the hills outside the colonial city of Oaxaca in southern México. Every member of this campesino/artesano family works together to create some of the country’s most colorful and creative folk art - the hand-carved, hand-painted wooden figures that have become one of México’s most popular contemporary crafts. Combining documentary footage of home and village life, interviews, and animated musical segments of Don Ventura’s whimsical creations, the video opens a window onto the daily life and unique world of this artisan family.

The Glove/El Guante: The story of a man who is mysteriously chosen to receive a strange box with a glove inside. From that moment on he becomes a part of a plan that may change his life forever.

Viaje a Marte: Journey to Mars is an animated stop motion short film. This independent production, which was made in Argentina, is the result of two years hard work. Since then, it has won 40 awards in different festivals around the world, competing in many cases against real action productions. The short tells the story of Antonio, a boy from the 60s, who is a great fan of science fiction TV serials and space trips. In view of the child's passion, his grandfather decides to take him to Mars in his tow truck. Directed and animated by Juan Pablo Zaramella , the story is based on a childhood anecdote from the script writer, Mario Rulloni. Instead of using actors, the voices of the characters were performed by ordinary people. This decision was made in order to lend spontaneity to the story.