issue 1 // volume 43 arts // no. 9

   

AUG 25 - SEPT 4

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VANCOUVER ;

LATIN AMERICAN
) FILM FESTIVAL

viaff.org

Ilustration by Antone W Pires, Juan Velasco Hernandez, and Carlo Barberi

THE VANCOUVER LATIN AMERICAN FESTIVAL
COMES TO DOUGLAS COLLEGE

 

VLAFF screening takes
viewers on a journey

> Film festival returns to Douglas College

Cheryl Minns
Columnist

 

he 14th Vancouver Latin
American Film Festival
(VLAFF) is teaming up with
Douglas College to screen one
of its festival films at the New
Westminster campus. The
Modern Languages department
invites students and the public
to come see a free screening
of Francisco Varone’s Road
to La Paz on September 8.

The film is about Sebastian
(Rodrigo de la Serna}, an
unemployed 35-year-old who
decides to use his car asa
taxi service in Buenos Aires,
Argentina. His customer is Khalil
(Ernesto Suarez), an elderly
Muslim man who wants to go
to La Paz, Bolivia, which is over
2,000 kilometres away. During
the long journey, the two men
have their disagreements, pick
up additional passengers along
the way—including a dog—and
eventually come to understand
one another a little better.

The film will be presented in
Spanish with English subtitles.
Modern Languages instructor

Ruth Mandujano-Lopez chose
the film from the options offered
to the college by VLAFF director
Christian Sida-Valenzuela.
“I chose this one because
it promises an engaging plot
between a young man and
an older man. It addresses,
among other themes, the
relation between a Christian
and a Muslim, a topic that has
a lot of relevance nowadays,”
Mandujano-Lopez explained.
“While I have not watched
the entire film, what I saw
seemed to address the issue
ina respectful and critical
way, with the young character
adopting some of the mainstream
prejudices at the beginning, but
undergoing a transformation
once he actually interacts
with the alleged ‘Other’ Iam
curious to see how the entire
film looks at this and what the
audience thinks,” she said.
Douglas College has shown
VLAFF screenings for the past
few years, including Juan Carlos
Cremata Malberti’s Nothing More
in 2013 and Moisés Septlveda’s
Illiterate in 2014. In 2015, the
VLAFF included the FIDAAC

(Columbian Audio-Visual Arts
Itinerant Film Festival) and
screened several FIDAAC films
at the college, including VICE
documentary ;Pacifista!.

The college has previously
brought in guest speakers
during the screenings, such as
the films’ directors. However,
this year’s screening won't
feature any special guests
since it occurs outside of the
14th VLAFF, which ran from
August 25 to September 4.

“In the past, VLAFF ran
throughout our first week of
classes. This year, it ends two
days prior to our first day of
the semester. But since we
have worked with the festival
for all these years, they agreed
to keep our screening, even if
it was outside of the festival’s
official times,” Mandujano-
Lopez explained. “I thought
this was better than having
a screening a week prior to
classes at Douglas College”

Road to La Paz will be
screening at 4:30 p.m. in lecture
theatre N2201 at the Douglas
College New Westminster
campus on September 8.

 

Comic Corner:
Remember when...

> ‘Batman: Orphans #1’ review

Brittney MacDonald
Life & Style Editor

OOOO

t’s September, and for
many of us that means
it’s back to the daily grind
of school, homework, part-
time jobs—basically all those
not fun things. So what
better way to celebrate than
with a little classic Batman?
Well, not so much a classic,
as classically inspired.

In Batman: Orphans,
writer Eddie Berganza takes
us back to the good old days
of Bruce Wayne (Batman)
and his third protégé, Tim
Drake (Robin). The pair is
investigating a strange murder
involving a dead Robin look-
a-like, only to find themselves
caught up in a Hunger
Games-style competition
involving a lot of angsty,
highly-acrobatic teenagers. The
catch is that they all seem to
think that they're competing
to BE the next Robin.

The reason | use the term
“classically inspired” is because
it draws on a lot of emotional

 

triggers from comic story arcs
of the past. Drake’s emotional
confrontation with seeing a
corpse that resembles him
is very reminiscent of Jason
Todd, Wayne’s second protégé,
in Batman: Under the Red
Hood. And the other teens’
stylization in both appearance
and personality almost sets
them up to become the DC
version of The Runaways—a
Marvel superhero team made
up of teenagers. The problem
is that the plot alludes to these
references in a very obvious
way, leaving it incapable of
standing on its own, and
instead becoming an homage.
Art-wise, | find myself
conflicted. I like the Eastern-
manga influence that Carlo
Barberi and Juan Vlasco
present, but I’m not sure if it
fits completely with this very
dark storyline. The awkward
teenage appearance of a lot of
the characters is exaggerated
to the point of being cartoony.
This appears out of place next
to all the blood and violence.
Overall, I found Orphans
lacking. | wanted so much more
out of this title, but instead
got an oddly pasted scrap-
book of “remember when...”