A woman saw her father murdered then met his killer, so she made a movie.
The inaugural Cine Casual Film Series will bring six award-winning Latin American films to the Queen City from January through April 2020. Cine Casual founder Giovanna Torres curated the series to introduce Latin American film to Charlotte and to explore topics relevant to the community, such as gun violence, ageism, affordable housing and machismo.
“The Latin American film industry is having one of its most successful and creative periods in its history,” Torres said. “Lack of distribution shouldn’t prevent people from seeing these films here.”
The film series kicks off Jan. 11, with a screening of Matar a Jesús (Killing Jesus) at Camp North End’s Boileryard (1824 Statesville Ave.) at 6 p.m., followed by a brief panel discussion and opening night reception. The reception will include refreshments from Manolo’s Bakery and a live DJ, and attendees will receive a limited-edition screen printed poster.
In Matar a Jesús, a 2018 Colombian film based on true events, director Laura Mora recounts the semi-autobiographical story of a young woman who witnesses her father’s murder and later crosses paths with the man she believes to be his killer.
Tickets and more details about each film in the series are available online. All featured films are rated R and will include English subtitles. Single screening tickets are $5. All-access passes are $45 each and include screenings of all six films, entry to the opening night reception and a poster.
Each screening will conclude with a short panel discussion led by Charlotte-based artists and community leaders, connecting themes in the films with local issues and perspectives. Dr. Gerald Brown with IC Counseling and Margaret Murphy with March For Our Lives: UNCC will lead the Matar a Jesús post-screening panel discussion.
“It’s not just watching a film,” Torres said. “It’s building community.”
Showtimes
The Cine Casual Film Series represents a breadth of Latin American culture, featuring a lineup of films from Argentina, Columbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Guatemala and Mexico.
Matar a Jesús (Killing Jesus)
Saturday, Jan. 11, 6 p.m.
Camp North End - 1820 Statesville Ave.
La Camarista (The Chambermaid)
Saturday, Jan. 25, 6 p.m.
Sunday, Jan. 26, 6 p.m.
VisArt Video - 3104 Eastway Drive
Candelaria
Saturday, Feb. 15, 6 p.m.
Camp North End - 1820 Statesville Ave.
Las Vegas
Saturday, March 7, 6 p.m.
Camp North End - 1820 Statesville Ave.
El Despertar de las Hormigas (The Awakening of the Ants)
Saturday, March, 21, 6 p.m.
Camp North End - 1820 Statesville Ave.
Temblores (Tremors)
Saturday, April 4, 6 p.m.
Camp North End - 1820 Statesville Ave.
At the conclusion of each screening, audience members can vote on how much they enjoyed the film. The film series will conclude with a special screening of the Audience-Award-winning film, as well as a Q&A with the film’s director at the 2020 BOOM Festival, April 17-19, in Charlotte’s Plaza Midwood neighborhood.
Torres has viewed and vetted all the films to be screened through her attendance at various national and international film festivals, including Miami Film Festival, Cartagena International Film Festival in Colombia and The International Film Festival of Panama.
Cross-cultural community building
Intentionally focused on inclusivity at every step of her film series project, Torres has collaborated with local entrepreneurs, artists, community leaders and venues throughout Charlotte to provide engaging, accessible gatherings.
“We’re trying to get everyone in that room,” Torres said. “We want the Latin American population to feel represented, and we want to invite all other communities to meet their neighbors and experience these films together.”
Among Torres’ Charlotte-based partners, local screen printing shop MacFly Fresh Printing Co. will produce the series’s limited-edition posters and host the kick-off celebration on Jan. 11. MacFly Fresh Printing Co. is the service arm of DRC ApeParel, a local Afrikan streetwear and lifestyle brand that celebrates global street culture.
“Creating culture and connecting with culture is one of our missions,” said Eric Ndelo, one of the founders of DRC ApeAparel and MacFly Fresh Printing Co. “There are people who are underrepresented in our community, and we want this partnership to show we are about what we talk about.”
For the team that oversees Camp North End’s 76-acre historic site, partnering with creatives like Ndelo and Torres is a natural fit for its mission to break down barriers while uplifting local artists and entrepreneurs.
“We are always thinking about how we can give a platform to different expressions of different cultures in unique ways,” said Varian Shrum, community manager at Camp North End.
Shrum said hosting the Cine Casual Film Series is yet another way Camp North End can uplift Latin American artists and bring together people interested in Latin American art in particular. Since opening to the public in 2017, Camp North End has hosted Red Calaca Studio’s bilingual art workshops, Rumbao Latin Dance Company’s free salsa and merengue classes, the Charlotte Peruvian Festival and Día de los Casi Muertos events.
“We want to give people doing great work room to grow and scale,” Shrum said.
About Cine Casual
Torres founded Cine Casual more than three years ago in Charlotte as an online resource for discovering and learning about Latin American film.
“I imagined there had to be other people like me who enjoy Latin American film and can’t find it,” she said. “From day one, this has been done for the love of art.”
Torres began Cine Casual with an understanding that the natural next step would be a film screening. While more than half of Cine Casual’s online readers are from Latin America and Spain, Torres quickly recognized a local need for and interest in Latin American film through her monthly collaborations with local media outlet HOLA NEWS.
“Charlotte has one of the fastest-growing Latin American populations in the United States,” she said.
According to reporting by the Charlotte Observer in June 2019, 2018 population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau indicate the nine-county region has added about 66,500 Hispanic residents this decade, a 33 percent increase. An estimated 148,300 Hispanic residents call Mecklenburg County home, comprising 14 percent of the population. Statewide since 2010, the Hispanic population in North Carolina has grown by 25 percent.
In 2019, Torres submitted her first-ever grant application to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s inaugural Celebrate Charlotte Arts initiative and was awarded $14,000 to bring her vision of a Cine Casual Film Series to life.
The film series is one of 12 projects to receive funding support as part of this initiative. According to the Knight Foundation, Celebrate Charlotte Arts “supports projects by and for the residents of Charlotte that showcase artistic excellence and capture the spirit of the city.”
Since Cine Casual’s beginning, Torres has interviewed numerous celebrated members of the Latin American film world, including Academy Award nominee Yalitza Aparicio, best known for her lead role in ROMA; Lila Aviles, director of The Chambermaid; Jayro Bustamante, director of Tremors; Dominga Sotomayor, director of Too Late to Die Young and the first female filmmaker to win Best Director Award at Locarno Film Fest; and Carlos Arciniegas, CNN anchor and Iberoamerican film ambassador and advocate.
“It’s been a blessing along the way to have this support system, not just in Charlotte, but back home in Puerto Rico, friends in Spain, friends in Chile,” Torres said. “It means so much to me that there are people around the world who see the potential and value in this project.”
