Saturday of Week Cinco at PHLAFF: The Cinema of Latinoamerica
PHLAFF 2025 continues its six week-long celebration of Latinx storytelling with a full-day cinematic takeover at Taller Puertorriqueño on Saturday, June 28, presenting an exciting mix of award-nominated features, genre-defying shorts, and multimedia experiences that honor memory, resilience, and bold imagination. Running from 11:00 AM to 9:30 PM, this day is set to be one of the most immersive and dynamic of the festival, grounded in community and dedicated to showcasing films from across Latin America and its diaspora.
LOLA Nominee Features: From Psychological Journeys to Satirical Surrealism
The day opens with Cold (11:00 AM), a haunting and emotionally resonant feature from the United States that explores grief, trauma, and maternal loss through a surreal purgatory-like setting. Following is Un Actor Se Prepara (11:45 AM), a dark, compelling Venezuelan film chronicling a Shakespearean actor’s descent into madness against the backdrop of national crisis. The midday feature, Hotel Amor (1:45 PM), brings levity and warmth from Brazil and Portugal in a quirky workplace dramedy filled with ghosts—literal and metaphorical.
These three works are all contenders in the LOLA Award – Features category, spotlighting the best in bold, boundary-pushing narrative cinema.
Action, Aesthetics & Experimental Shorts
At 3:30 PM, PHLAFF shifts gears with the Action & Thriller Shorts Block, headlined by standout entries like The Inconvenience Store and The Humming Grows. These high-energy works blend sci-fi, social commentary, and genre twists—offering a thrilling cinematic ride.
Later in the evening, at 6:30 PM, the Technology Influenced Shorts Block examines how modern anxieties—from digital identity to historical erasure—are shaped by the screens we live behind. Highlights include Asterion: or, (if you mess with the bull...), Franciscan Contradictions, and All Meat Diet, which delve into image, performance, and power in both virtual and personal spaces.
Shorts of Spirit and Story: Lore, Memory & Magic
The Of Lore and Life Shorts Block (7:15 PM) curates a visually rich and thematically layered set of films focused on myth, history, and ancestral memory. Highlights include:
YANGA (Mexico): A lyrical tribute to freedom, music, and Afro-Mexican heritage.
Ilhéus (Brazil): A mystical tale of transformation after a sea-bound rescue.
Nightmare of La Lechuza (United States): A comedic horror spin on Latinx folklore.
Yaa Ye’e: Deidades de Cuarzo (Mexico): An experimental meditation on indigenous cosmologies and mineral memory.
Each short reimagines culture through a lens of wonder and resistance.
Feature Spotlight: Art as Resistance
Between the blocks, audiences will experience Anna Mariani – Anotações Fotográficas (4:15 PM), a Brazilian feature-length documentary that celebrates the pioneering photographic work of Anna Mariani. Her images of rural architecture in northeastern Brazil elevate the everyday into the iconic, and the film beautifully retraces the paths she walked and the cultural imprint she left behind.
Closing Feature: Julia VIVE
The day concludes with Julia VIVE (8:00 PM), a dramatic docu-narrative honoring the life and legacy of iconic Puerto Rican poet Julia de Burgos. Interweaving documentary interviews, rare archival material, and narrative re-creations, the film celebrates Julia’s poetic fire, political courage, and lasting impact on Caribbean feminist thought. A hybrid masterpiece, Julia VIVE brings her life vividly to screen with reverence and joy, closing the evening on a high cultural note.
📍 All events take place at:
Taller Puertorriqueño
2600 N 5th St, Philadelphia, PA 19133
🎟️Tickets and full festival info available at Eventive.
