The inaugural Abya Yala Latin American Film Festival, a three-day celebration of Latin American cinema, music, dance and intercultural dialogue, runs at Sudbury Indie Cinema Oct. 3-5.
The festival is organized by the Frames and Frequencies Collective, comprising artists Cecilia Rodriguez, Ali Rodriguez and Emilce Quevedo.
“Abya Yala,” meaning “living land” or “land that flourishes,” is a term from the Indigenous peoples of Colombia and Panama used to refer to the Americas. It has been reclaimed by Latin American thinkers and artists as a decolonial expression of unity across the continent—North and South alike.
This spirit of unity and resistance grounds the ethos of the film festival.
The festival will screen six feature films and five short films, representing countries including Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, and Mexico.
The program includes fiction, documentary and experimental works, spotlighting urgent themes and bold voices in contemporary Latin American cinema.
The festival also features work by Latin-Canadian filmmakers based in Ontario, as well as Latino-Canadian film students, providing a platform for emerging artists and stories rooted in diaspora experiences.
"Through these stories, we can come together, understand one another, and appreciate the richness of diversity,” said The Frames and Frequencies Collective.
“This will also be a space for us as Latin Americans to reconnect with our roots, our language, and our culture, and to acknowledge our origins while connecting us with other communities living in Sudbury, to establish intercultural dialogue, to rejoice in the cultural diversity of this city, and to allow us to get to know each other and come together through film and the reflections it generates.”
The full list of films and programming is available online here.