ITHACA, N.Y.—Cine Con Cultura, the monthlong film festival that coincides with Latinx Heritage Month, is nodding to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and bringing in perspectives from Latin American countries on abortion.
This year, Latinx Heritage Month is Sept. 15 through Oct. 15, and Cine Con Cultura’s 14 films run Sept. 17 through Oct. 16 at the Cornell Cinema, Ithaca College’s Textor Hall, Cinemapolis, or the Greater Ithaca Activities Center (GIAC).
Three films later in the lineup will be streamed online for free, and eight of the 14 films are available to view for free. Students can purchase tickets at Cornell Cinema for $7.50, and tickets for the general public are $9.50. Cinemapolis student tickets are $10, and adult tickets are $11.
Initially created on a county level when the Latino Civic Association wanted to begin organizing more cultural events, Cine Con Cultura has continued each year, offering various films nodding to topics of cultural or political significance.
Enrique González-Conty, professor in the world languages, literatures and cultures department at Ithaca College, has been directing Cine Con Cultura for the past seven years, and got involved with the festival after its first year when Carolina Osorio Gil and Debra Castillo created the festival.
This is the first year since COVID that González-Conty was able to include student volunteers to help put the festival on, and this year, volunteers have been running the social media pages to help advertise and educate about the festival.
The committee in charge of selecting each festival’s films tries to look at different programs at both schools so that the materials can be relevant to the students, and professors can include the films in their classes.
González-Conty said that this year, Ithaca College’s LGBTQ Center collaborated to include a film on LGBTQ rights called “Lemebel.” Playing on Sept. 29, “Lemebel” follows a queer activist, artist and writer in Chile who challenged the dictatorship in the 1980s.
“Fly So Far,” which will be available online Oct. 12, is about a woman in El Salvador — a country that criminalizes abortion to the point of categorizing it as homicide — who miscarries and is then arrested. “You can see the level of intensity that is, and so it is the story of her. I wanted to include that one so that we can also engage in, in other conversations about the things that that are happening in the U.S.,” González-Conty said.
Aside from the festival, this year’s Latinx Heritage Month celebrations include a dance with choreographed by Azucena Campos López, including a “folkloric dance from Mexico,” complete with authentic costumes from Mexico.
The last component of Cine Con Cultura’s events is an art exhibit with Latinx components that will take place at CMSA in October for a Friday gallery night event. The event page for the exhibit is pending but will be on Cultura Ithaca‘s website.