When the Chicago Latino Film Festival opens this week, it won’t include a blood-and-gore offering by Chicago filmmaker Ricardo Islas. Islas has been a fest regular since 1996, contributing flicks from his Alpha Studios with titles like To Kill a Killer, Night Fangs, and Lockout. He says they drew “decent” attendance and inspired lively discussions, so he was surprised when this year’s submission, El Dia de los Muertos—in which an impoverished Mexican immigrant falls victim to a band of American punks who get their kicks by making snuff videos—was rejected. More than any of his other movies, Islas says, this one is a great fit with the festival: the plot turns on Latino themes, it’s bilingual, and it was shot in both Mexico and Chicago, using local talent.
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Whether you agree that Islas’s movie has redeeming qualities or think it’s a piece of sadistic crap, his campaign has opened a window on problems at the 24-year-old festival. Some veterans—filmmakers and former employees—say Vargas is distracted by his real priority: running a Latino cultural center and trying to build a $50 million home for it. Meanwhile, they say, the festival he’s promoted as the nation’s “oldest, biggest, and best” is stagnating under an outmoded vision. They’d like to see it become a more industry-oriented event.
The film festival audience is now about 30,000, the annual budget $1.2 million (60 percent of which is goods and services donated in kind). Ticket sales account for roughly 20 percent of the budget, 65 percent comes from corporate sponsors, and the rest from public and private donors. The center has a full-time staff of four, and it’s working to erase the last of a $150,000 debt Vargas says was run up while he was on a recent sabbatical. He admits that the festival’s growth has slowed to somewhere between 2 and 5 percent annually, but blames that on the media’s preference for Hollywood over foreign films and the ILCCC’s lack of money for advertising.
As for El Dia de los Muertos, Vargas says that like every other submission it was viewed by four members of the selection committee, each of whom independently scored it on a scale from one to five. Any film with an average score above three gets consideration, he says. In this case, the decision was clear: “I got four feedbacks, with a very, very low average.”
Stefan pegs the cost at about $25,000 per issue and says CAC has money set aside to subsidize the launch but is also soliciting ads and donations. According to its hype, Prompt aims to jump into the gap left by the demise of the monthly New Art Examiner and bimonthly Dialogue. Each issue will be built around a theme; the first is “Practical Revolution.” Hang on for articles like “New Models of Green Architecture,” and “The Role of the Artist—Agent of Change or Not?”v
