Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Cine con Cultura film festival looks different from past years, but it continues to share Latinx life and culture through film. From Sept. 16 to Oct. 10, the festival will show eight films from Latin America for audiences in Ithaca and online.
“Some of the films are only screened in those countries, so it’s really hard to watch them if you don’t go to really big festivals,” Enrique González-Conty, director of Cine con Cultura, said.
This year is the seventh annual festival held during Latinx Heritage Month. In 2020 and 2019, the festival featured 14 and 12 films respectively, but this year is limited to eight films.
“If they’re really successful and really famous films, since we have a pretty tiny festival, it’s pretty common that [the film directors] don’t get back to you,” González-Conty said. “It’s not because they want to do it on purpose, but they get so many emails and so many festivals want to show their films.”
Cine con Cultura is organized by Cultura Ithaca, an organization created to share Latinx culture with the Ithaca community through accessible educational experiences. Cine con Cultura, along with an art exhibition and dance showcase are annual experiences that comprise Cultura Ithaca’s celebration of Latinx Heritage Month.
A collaboration between numerous organizations and screening hosts, the festival depends on the support of academic departments at both Ithaca College and Cornell University, as well as community organizations like the Latino Civic Association of Tompkins County.
Screening hosts for 2021 are Cinemapolis and Cornell Cinema, in addition to virtual screenings available through the Cultura Ithaca website. In past years, Ithaca College has hosted screenings, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic the college will not host any this year.
Although Cornell Cinema continues as a host for the festival this year, visitors to the Willard Straight Theater are limited. As the notice on the ticket page of the cinema’s website states, “Due to COVID guidance, Cornell Cinema will be open to the Cornell community ONLY until at least late September.”
“They were trying to open the theater for the public and for the community, but then the delta variant came,” González-Conty said. “If you’re not a Cornell staff member, faculty member or student, then you’re not going to be able to watch those films.”
Johanna Keigler, a student at Cornell University, attended the festival’s first screening at Cornell Cinema as an assignment for her Latino Music class. She said she was looking forward to seeing the film.
“I haven’t been to a cinema in a while,” Keigler said. “It’ll be nice, learning about Latino music culture.”
Cinemapolis, a participant in Cine con Cultura from the beginning, will only be screening one film this year. Screenings for the festival were first held at Cinemapolis before Cornell Cinema and and Ithaca College started getting involved.
“It happened kind of organically,” said Brett Bossard, executive director of Cinemapolis, of the festival’s growth. “We’re happy to work with the whole group … it’s great to be a partner in this whole community effort.”
One of the positive results of pandemic is accessibility to certain films. Four of the eight films are virtual screenings and are free for anyone to attend.
“We should be providing at least some of the films for free for those who cannot watch them,” González-Conty said. “We did that last year and it was really successful because a lot of people watched those films.”
Cultura Ithaca received a grant from the Community Arts Partnership to help pay for the festival. González-Conty said that the rights to screen the films available virtually were all paid through the grant.
“Ideally, I would open all of the screenings for free for everyone,” González-Conty said, “Since we are collaborating with Cornell Cinema and Cinemapolis, … they have to charge for the tickets, but for the virtual cinema — I’m posting them.”
The links to the virtual screenings are available on the Cine con Cultura page of the Cultura Ithaca website.
