Father Geek here with a wonderful opportunity for you all to experience some of the best in Latin cinema. Our Latin-AICN reporter/editor LOBO has put together all the info you need to place yourself in the middle of some exciting film from South of the US border, its a great cross section of the culture and you should all make a point of viewing at least some of these delightful motion pictures...

HELLO CINE-RAZA.. your amigo LOBO one more time with some info about a Film-fest on TV that I got from Geek headquarters. This is a great opportunity for all of you guys that want to see Latin Films because instead of wondering when or where they are going to be happening, this time all you have to do is get comfortable at your house and enjoy the filmfest on your own TV. I got this info a while ago but I decided to work on it for a closer date to the filmfest so you won't forget about it and actually catch this cool Festival.

**** For two weeks, Sunday August 6 to Saturday, August 12 and Sunday, August 20 to Saturday August 26 a different "Arte Latino" feature airs each night at 9:00 p.m. EST, a primetime schedule that encompasses the entire fourteen-film series. Also will be Latino Shorts I on Sunday August 6 at 8:00 p.m. and Latino Shorts II on Sunday, August 20.

Sundance Channel, the premier television destination for the film festival experience, celebrates Latin American cinema with its August FilmFest, "Arte Latino". Since the late 1950s, Latin American filmmakers have pioneered an innovative, highly imaginative approach to their art in historical epics, multi-layered allegories, dark satires, picaresque comedies and bracing works of realism.

This unique FilmFest offers viewers a rare opportunity to sample a cross-section of films from both veteran and emerging artists, a selection that spans countries, decades and genres. At present, the "Arte Latino" line-up includes fourteen features, representing Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Cuba and the United States.

"Arte Latino" continues and expands upon the commitment of the Sundance Film Festival and the Sundance Institute to Latin American cinema. In nations throughout Latin America, some filmakers can encounter difficulty finding creative support and technical resources as well as reaching international markets with their work. The Sundance Institute has undertaken to address those circumstances through workshops, financial programs and other means; its work in Latin America constitutes its oldest and more extensive international involvement, Many of the films that grow out of the Institute,s work receive their first public exposure at the annual Sundance Film Festival, in the special section devoted to Latin American cinema. There is a pasion and an imagination in both Latin American artists and Latin American cinema that is unparalleled and all-encompassing. Great film transports you to another place, another dimension og thought and feeling; that is what the films of "Arte Latino" do. By programming films from across the region, we hope to give viewers a feel for the tremendous scope and richness of Latin American cinema.

"Arte Latino" showcases some of the most talked-about features to have come out of Latin America in recent years. Several are U.S. premieres, including SILVIA PRIETO, a deliciously understated comedy about identity and chance, written and directed by Argentine filmmaker Martin Rejtman. SILVIA PRIETO is a Buenos Aires slacker who decides to change her life on her 27th birthday, which leads to all sorts of weirdly connecting events thatinvolve Silvia's ex-husband, a detergent vendor named Brite, Brite's ex-husband, an orange canary, a yellow Armani jacket and lots more. With its deadpan humor, zippy pace and playful plotting, SILVIA PRIETO is original and made it's American debut at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival.

"Arte Latino" presents several films about Cuba, including the seminal 1968 classic MEMORIES OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT (MEMORIAS DEL SUBDESARROLLO), by the great Tomas Gutierrez Alea, (Strawberry and Chocolate). Groundbreaking in form and content, the film integrated fiction and documentary footage to explore the growing alienation of a bourgeois intellectual in post-Revolutionary Cuba. Earning top awards at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and a special award from the National Society of Film Critics, MEMORIES OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT sealed Gutierrez Alea's reputation as a filmmaker.

Contemporary Havana is the setting for Leon Ichaso's powerful 1996 drama BITTER SUGAR(AZUCAR AMARGA). Ichaso, who emigrated to the U.S. at age 14, drew upon real-life events and the experiences of his family in creating the story of an idealistic Communist student and a would-be emigre who fall in love despite their diametrically opposed political views. Marvelously acted and gorgeously photographed in black and white, BITTER SUGAR works both as a stirring love story and a passionate critique limning the impact of goverment polocies, pervasive shortages and booming foreign tourism on the lives of ordinary people.

Definitely not to be missed is the gorgeous UNDER CALIFORNIA: THE LIMIT OF TIME (BAJO CALIFORNIA: EL LIMITE DEL TIEMPO),winner of the 1999 Golden Ariel, the Mexican Academy Award for best film and a hit at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. Directed by Carlos Bolado(Like Water for Chocolate), UNDER CALIFORNIA: THE LIMIT OF TIME is a richly textured road movie about an artist named Damian(Damian Alcazar-LEY DE HERODES) who journeys into the Baja desert yearning to reconnect with some elemental part of himself. Encountering various souls as he travels the haunting desert landscape, eventually reaching his family's ancestral home and the ancient painted caves high in the Baja mountains, Damian finds what he needs to continue his life as an artist, husband and father-to-be.

Another prespective on modern Cuba can be found in Michael Skolnik and William O'Neill's documentary THE HOT CORNER(LA ESQUINA CALIENTE), which makes its world premiere as part of "Arte Latino". Winner of a special Jury Prize at the 1999 Latin American Film Festival, the film examines the lives of eighteen people and how they were affected by the March 1999 baseball games between the Baltimore Orioles and the Cuban National Team. Also airing Life is to Whistle(La vida es silbar), Cuban director Fernando Perez's delightfully lyrical love letter to his island home. Perez brings an invigorating blend of absurdit humor and narrative fabulism to a trio of interconnected stories about a lustful ballerina, a lovelorn fisherman and a middle-aged woman who faints upon hearing the word "sex" . A sure-fire audience pleaser, this dazzling, sensual film won the special Jury Award for Latin American Cinema at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival.

Now to make this shorter here is what else will be on the Festival and some part of the schedule:

Bajo California:El limite del tiempo(Mexico) August 4 9:pm; 13 5:pm; 19 10:am & 6:pm; 24 10:30 am & 9:pm; 30 12:30pm & 11:pm

Azucar Amarga (Bitter Sugar-Cuba) August 6 9:pm; 9 9:30am; 14 10:30pm; 19 12:am; 29 9:45am & 4:pm

The Big Bang August 3 2:pm & 5:30am; 10 11:am & 7:pm; 14 9:am & 4:pm

The Selling of a Serial Killer August 6 2:30pm; 11 2:pm & 1:am; 16 6:pm; 22 1:30pm & 12:30am

Gabriela(Brazil) August 2 10:pm; 5 2:05am; 20 9:pm; 24 12:30am

Hidden River(Argentina) August 11 9:pm; 14 12:30pm & 4:30am; 17 6:am,1:pm & 11:pm; 23 6:30am & 5:30pm

The Hi-Lo Country(U.S. /with Penelope Cruz) August 14 12:30pm & 4:30am

I Went Down (Spain) August 15 9:pm; 18 10:pm; 27 2:am

The Hot Corner(Cuba) August 18 9:pm; 23 9:am & 9:pm; 27 2:pm & 7:pm; 31 11:30am & 1:30am

Life is to Whistle(Cuba) August 2 2:am; 10 9:pm; 15 11:pm; 20 12:35am

Lone Star(USA) August 13 11:am & 9:pm; 26 6:30pm; 31 1:30pm & 11:pm

Memories Underdevelopment(Cuba 1968) August 3 10:30pm; 13 3:am; 26 9:pm

Midnight(Brazil-Walter Salles) August 6 6:am & 1:pm; 12 12:am; 22 12:pm & 9:pm; 28 7:35am & 3:35pm

Paulina(U.S.-Mexico) August 4 12:30am; 9 9:pm; 14 9:pm; 26 2:30am

Silvia Prieto(Argentina) August 25 9:pm; 29 10:30pm; 31 4:pm & 2:30am

The Water Carrier(Colombia) August 8 9:pm; 13 7:pm; 17 5:pm; 21 12:pm

Short-Films.......

LATINO SHORTS I

August 6 8:pm; 10 10:am; 13 8:30am; 23 12:pm; 28 11:am & 3:30am

FIDEL

SIESTA

THE TORTURED CLOWN

DAY TO DAY

LATINO SHORTS II

August 20 8:pm; 21 11:am; 23 2:am; 24 9:30am & 6:pm; 29 7:am & 3:pm

PEEL

THE ROAD TO THE COAST

DINNER PARTY

KALAMAZOO

REINVENTION

EL RIO

EL CORREDOR DE CECILIA RIOS

SONIDO BLANCO

I think it will be great if all of you can take some time to see these flicks , but if you can't then I specially recommend for you to try and make some time for Bajo California:El Limite Del Tiempo, Bitter Sugar, The Hot Corner, Hidden River, Life is to Whistle, Memories Underdevelopment, The Water Carrier and the short films.

Well I don't want to leave without letting you know one more time that this Festival will be taking place in August, so keep this on your TV on a piece of paper and just check for the schedules in your area and if you want more info on this just check the site of the Sundance Channel and remember this channel is now available in New Zealand on Sky TV's digital satellite service and for the folks in Latin America you can check some of this festival on The Film Zone on Thursday and Sunday evenings... oohhh and if you don't have cable, don't worry I think is better that way because I don't think is fair to pay for that kind of "service" I mean what else is next, us paying a fee to listen to Radio (isn't the $$ from commercials enough or isn't cable a monopoly??). I also hope for more channels to do this kind of thing just like Sundance Channel.

OK now I'm done and I'll see you later and don't forget to check LATIN-AICN Okay...nos vemos !!

P.S. TRY TO CATCH THIS FEST, IT IS A REALLY COOL AND RARE OPPORTUNITY TO SEE THIS.