Señorita Cinema
Curator Stephanie Saint Sanchez in attendance
Saturday, August 27, 8PM
Location: TBH Center, 333 S. Jensen Dr.
$8 Non-Members, Aurora Members Free with RSVP
Now in its 3rd year, Senorita Cinema is The Lone Star State’s very own All Latina Film Festival. Founded by Houston filmmaker Stephanie Saint Sanchez, each installment gives the screen over to the rising trust of women who are sharing their amazing stories, styles, voices and visions by making movies and video art unique to the Latina experience.
Inspired by Josephina Lopez’s (writer “Real Women Have Curves”) Boyle Heights Latina Independent Film Extravaganza in Los Angeles, Señorita Cinema started in 2007 as part of founder Stephanie Saint Sanchez’s Lawndale Art Center Studio Artists Residency. For this year's event, Aurora Picture Show joins La Chicana Laundry Pictures to present the the short film screening in partnership with Talento Bilingüe de Houston.
From a documentary short on Selena to a tale of “baby mamma” drama, the short films for the 2011 screening include a diverse array of topics. Following the screening, there will be a reception hosted by Saint Arnold Brewery and El Rey Taqueria. Curator Stephanie Saint Sanchez will also be in attendance for a Q&A following the screening.
The selected films for this year’s Señorita Cinema include:
A Conversation With Nick Gaitan
by Brenda Cruz
Local Houston musician Nick Gaitan talks about his musical world, including his band Nick Gaitan and the Umbrella Man, and what he loves most- Houston, TX.
No Kids. No Cry
by Fanny Veliz
A humorous look at the issue of child support through the eyes of three single dads. Today is payday... for the baby mamas that is.
Possessed by the Beat
by Rachel Estrada
A 20s period piece inspired by Joan Crawford's "Dancing Daughters" fused with multimedia artist, Max Xandaux's latest music single "Possessed By the Beat," with music produced by one of Houston's brightest music producers, BLACK CAT.
Impatient
by Jelly Jar Collective / Monica Villarreal and Autumn Knight
A Black and Brown friendship, mediated by language, provides a lens to examine the increasingly overlapping presence of African-American and Hispanics/Latinos throughout Houston.
Feast of the Beast
by Mev Luna
A performative video about a monster hell bent on consuming pronoun cakes representing the gender spectrum in an attempt to “undo” gender, but in the process becomes “undone” by the commentary from the curator and the mass amount of cake consumed.
Un encuentro de dos tiempos
by Sayra Contreras
A love story en glorious Espanol. Porque el amor no ve, no juzga y no respeta reglas sociales. El amor es, simplemente es.
Reign Subterraneo
by Stalina Emmanuelle Villarreal
Prosaic yet sickly tabletop-puppet twins enlist their healthy tabletop-puppet friend Bella to help enter the portal of an underground world of shadow puppetry, where poet of the underworld and his gatekeeper the jaguar protect the verses of ancestry.
Little Courage
by Veronica Caicedo
Small steps can lead to incredible results. A six year-old decides to take matters into her own hands for the well being of others. Will she be successful?
The Moon Song of Assassination
by Dolissa Medina
A film“docu-legend” about the life and death of the Tejano music singer Selena Quintanilla which combines appropriated news accounts, performance footage, and 1960s NASA imagery to tell the story of Selena’s ascension into America’s pantheon of martyred cultural figures -- a moment when “The Big Bang began not with a bang and not with a boom but with the biddi biddi bom bom of Yolanda’s gun.”
Mexican Fried Chicken
by Ivete Lucas
A Mexican immigrant boy struggles with his cultural identity and his hectic life: working at Popeye’s Chicken, at his father’s repair shop, getting good grades at school and taking care of his brother and sister.
*Special Bonus Spotlight Screening*
La Puta
Iris Almaraz
Gaby, a young girl living in a border town, struggles to find her identity as she’s stuck playing parent to her mentally ill mother, and dealing with the emotional tides of puberty. A surprising friendship with a woman shunned by the town leads Gaby discover what it really means to be a woman.
Special thanks to El Rey Taqueria, Talento Bilingüe de Houston and Saint Arnold Brewery for their support of this program.
Raised in Beaumont, corrupted in Houston, tephanie Saint Sanchez is a multi-media artist, movie maker, and instigator. As founder of La Chicana Laundry Pictures, she has made over 25 award winning, genre-bending shorts. She is Founder of the Senorita Cinema Film Festival, the only all Latina Film Festival in Texas. She is also a recipient of a (SWAMP) Southwest Alternate Media Project Emerging Filmmakers Fellowship and Lawndale Artist Studio Program. This year she takes the helm of her first feature, which is a musical about the life and times of Tragic Texas Rose Anna Nicole Smith.
For the 2011 Film Festival, a guest panel made up of Houston Arts All-Stars including Executive Director of Southwest Alternate Media Project (SWAMP) Mary Lampe; Deputy Director of the Houston Film Commission Alfred Cervantes; Film Program Manager of Rice University Department of Visual and Dramatic Art Tish Stringer; Executive Director of Lawndale Art Center Christine Jelson West; and Independent Curator Margarita De La Vega Hurtado.