Surviving Venezuela
‘Surviving Venezuela: Smuggling Dreams’, directed by Anglo-Peruvian Alexander ‘Lali’ Houghton is a TV documentary filmed in 2017 for ‘Witness’, Al Jazeera. It was short listed for a Rory Peck Award (2018), as well for the Foreign…
'Memory House' Dir João Paulo Miranda María
Set in modern-day Brazil, with a fantastical narrative using hallucinations and dreams, in his film Memory House 2020, João Paulo Miranda María explores the lonely and tortured life of Cristovam as he suffers the harsh clash of…
Maria (2024) by multi-award-winning Chilean director Pablo Larraín.
“I’m in a mood for adulation” Pablo Larraín explores the last years in the life of coloratura soprano María Callas once the applause had faded, as she lives, almost unknown and forgotten in a sumptuous apartment in Paris, France…
NINE BODIES IN A MEXICAN MORGUE (2025) by Anthony Horowitz
‘And then there was one.’ After a plane crash in the Mexican jungle, the National Guard are stuck with 10 passports but only 9 corpses. What is going on? This new 6-episode thriller series on BBC iPlayer touches on the absurd…
COSMIC CONNECTIONS
Patricia Diaz describes herself as a migrant storyteller, for she has lived longer in London than in her native Colombia. Her debut novel ‘The Golden Bat’ touches on the tragic events of the 1985 Nevado del Ruiz volcano eruption…
THE ROAD TO PATAGONIA Dir. Matty Hannon
This is a document of 16 years of ecologist Matty Hannon’s life, as he follows his dream to travel and be at one with nature, while falling in love and surfing some of the wildest waves on the planet travelling down America'…
Only Room for One Latin Diva?
Ever since Yanet Fuentes, the only Latin American ever to grace the UK’s prime-time talent shows, left the BBC’s 'So You Think You Can Dance', the blogosphere has been awash with outrage at judge Sisco Gomez's…
“Grief is Grey”: An interview Merced Elizondo, Oscar-qualified director of ‘THE MOURNING OF’ (2025)
With gentle black humour, superb craftmanship and performances, ‘THE MOURNING OF’, a moving short film by Merced Elizondo leaves the viewer wanting more. It's no surprise that the film, “The Mourning of”, which explores…
Favela Aesthetics: From the periphery to global fashion reference
Brazilian culture is a dazzling celebration of life, bringing together music, dance, and vibrant community spirit. At the heart of this energy lies the favela aesthetic — unexpected beauty blossoming in urban neighbourhoods,…
PORTO (Dir. Gabe Klinger)
Presenting his debut fiction feature at the London Film festival this week, Brazilian/American Director Gabe Klinger talks about the film's central themes around the intense experience one can have with a stranger and…
Horror is alive and kicking in THE BREACH (2022) by Rodrigo Gudiño
Mexican- Canadian film director Rodrigo Gudiño, best known for founding the horror magazine and company Rue Morgue, has lived up to his reputation with an entertaining and fun horror film with plenty of gore, ‘The Breach’ (2022)
TIDES (2017) Unwinding down winding canals
Shot in mesmerizing Black & White against a backdrop of Surrey’s serene canals, a group of forty something friends who have not seen each other for a while, decide to spend a weekend on a narrow boat to rekindle their…
Above All...
‘Sobretodo’ in Spanish is the word for ‘coat’, but the literal translation means ‘about everything’, a detail not lost on the author, as this delightful selection of poems by Argentine author Sylvia Libedinsky is exactly that:…
A Little Private Heaven?
Is film the last refuge of poetry? Or a refuge of dreams? At the BFI Flare London LGBTQ+ Film Festival, Corina J. Poore talks to Brazilian film maker Guto Parente, director of Inferninho (My Private Hell, 2018), about his film…
LATIN LDONDONER #7 Julieta Hernández Adame - Visual Artist
Mexican born Julieta Hernández Adame is a talented artist and printmaker who skilfully uses the urban, the industrial and above all the power of words to make us reflect on the world we leave in. She was voted the Visual Artist…
MECKY CREUS: DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY FOR 'MAÑANA FUE BONITO'
Karol G’s brand-new documentary ‘Mañana Fue Bonito’ has landed on Netflix and shows viewers what it's like to balance life as one of the world's biggest reggaeton stars while on a sold-out stadium tour. Director of…
On Writing a Continent’s Story - A conversation with acclaimed poet Leo Boix
Poet, translator and critic Leo Boix is a lyrical tour de force and a fire-keeper for a new generation of British Latinx writers, having edited the ground-breaking 'Hemisferio Cuir: An Anthology of Young Queer Latin American…
EL FATHER PLAYS HIMSELF (2020) dramatic documentary directed by Mo Scarpelli
“The root of all shades of machismo is fear, the root of family is love. In ‘EL FATHER PLAYS HIMSELF’ this fear and love collide.”
The Things That Tie Us
During his day job as a Spanish criminal interpreter in a small town in California, filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes met a young man named Sansón, an undocumented Mexican immigrant who was sentenced to life in prison without parole.…
WHERE TO PARTY - The Ultimate Guide to Cocktails and Dancing
There's nothing quite like a Latin party, with rhythms flowing and ladies glowing. But where can you find the Real Latin Thing? Here’s our definitive directory of London’s best Latin drinks and club nights.
O silencio das Ostras (The Silence of the Oysters) 2024 by Brazilian director Marcos Pimental
Screening at the Berlinale 2025 is a powerful debut fiction feature by documentarist Marcos Pimental. Based in a ghostly mining village, it relates the subsequent devastation of toxic sludge caused by the bursting of a dam in…
LATIN LONDONER #2 Vanessa Carvalho - Brazilian Singer and Dancer
Vanessa Carvalho from Salvador, Bahia – Brazil. started singing and dancing at the age of 8 and performed with many Brazilian artists. She embarked on a musical adventure together with Leo Mantini from Rome, which became that…
Bravery and Tragedy in the Pampas
Corina Poore talks to the up and coming Argentine director Martin Rodriguez Redondo whose debut feature film “Marylin’ recounting the tragic real life events of a teenager targeted for challenging gender stereotypes in the…
MAKING MAGIC: The Latina Filmmakers Making Audiences Cry and Imaginations Fly
There are more Latina directors and producers on the international film circuit than ever before. Having to break conventions and funding barriers, they are forced to be pioneers as well as creative sparks to astonishing results…
LATINOLIFE'S NEW YEAR'S HOTLIST
At Latino Life we like to bring in the New Year with Latin bang...here's a few ways to help
Latin Shorts
Since short films were removed from accompanying all features at cinemas, they have struggled to find venues to reach an audience. The The 21st London Short Film Festival aims to change that, in style. We review four Latin…
Chasing Butterflies
Victoria Kellaway visits the birthplace of Gabriel García Márquez, Nobel Prize winner, pioneer of Magical Realism and Colombia’s most famous writer.
Black Horses Are Massive - A Striking Tribute and Work of Power
Black Horses Are Massive, written by Bárbara Esmenia Rãé, showed as a reading for one night only at the Royal Court as part of their International Programme. Set in a Brazilian prison, this play was written in response to the…
Shaped in Mexico, Found in London
Both originally from Monterrey, Mexico, Daniela Fernandez founder of Distrito 14 a multi-diciplinery gallery in Monterrey, and Silvia Palacios, founder of their London sister gallery, Platform C, joined forces to take over the…
London's Latin Culture Under Threat
Stefanie Alvarez, who grew up amidst the bustling 'Pueblito Paisa' market, where her mother works, in Seven Sisters, is set on defending the much-loved north London Latin hub from the designs of property developers who…
In Oaxaca The Walls Speak
In a country whose history simmers with political resistance and art, graffiti has come to reflect a post-modern merging of the two. Far away from the Banksy hype, we celebrate the art of Mexican political graffiti and the…
The Golden Dream 2014 Dir: Diego Quemada-Díez
Gripping and aesthetically beautiful, but always honest and uncompromising – The Golden Dream is an unusual and impactful depiction of US immigration. Starring: Karen Martínez, Brandon López, Carlos Chajon, Rodolfo Domínguez
Brazil's Social Realism?
If Ken Loach were Brazilian, he may well have made a film like this. THE SECOND MOTHER is about a set of social rules which have been in place in Brazilian and Latin American culture since colonial times, and which continues to…
Finding Brazilian Dance in the UK
In few cultures around the world is dance such an important expression of identity. Through Forró, samba and Capoeira, Brazil shows itself to the world and reinvents itself abroad. Experiencing Brazil in London is, in many ways,…