Now marking its 20th year, the Latin American Film Festival is one of the most joyous events on the Canberra calendar – and it’s entirely free to the public, rejoices arts editor HELEN MUSA.

Always full of excitement, drama and very often politics, the Latin American Film Festival has been shown everywhere from the NGA to the National Museum, but since 2018 has settled comfortably into the ANU’s Kambri precinct under the watchful eye of the ANU Film Group, who say this year’s will be “the best ever”. 

The hosting of the festival is a rotating affair and this year it falls to El Salvador. When I catch up with festival curator Cristian Figueroa and his colleague Eduardo Cardoza, at the embassy of El Salvador, I find them brimming with enthusiasm for a perfect example of “soft diplomacy”.

Starting on August 14, the festival will feature a movie a day, usually with local culinary delights, including drinks and coffee.

Figueroa says there’ll be 13 participating countries – El Salvador, Costa Rica, Mexico, Uruguay, Panama, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Chile and Colombia, most screening in Spanish, but in the case of Brazil, also Portuguese, all with English subtitles.

Fittingly, the opening night choice will fall to El Salvador, whose film, Indomable/Untamed, is Nigel Marven’s 58-minute documentary showing the spectacular beauty of a volcano-rich country which, though it has endured a turbulence past, is now recognised by Australia as a safe for visitors.

The underlying purpose of the festival is to expose Latin American culture to Australians, although Figueroa admits that there’s a special pleasure in showing their films to audiences of Latin descent. 

With that in mind, the main focus has continued to be on Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide, but in recent years, the festival has expanded to Wollongong, Hobart, Perth and Darwin.

“It’s an opportunity to strengthen relationships, especially for small countries,” Cardoza says. 

This year, the program will pay special attention to families, with animated films for general screening. One such from Uruguay, is José Infantozzi’s Becho, which conjures up the gifted Gerardo Matos Rodríguez, who composed the famous tango, La Cumparsita. 

Another, from Mexico is Uma & Haggen, a fantasy animation about a Meso-American princess named Uma and a Viking boy named Haggen, who come from opposing worlds. 

There’s no shortage of variety, even a horror movie from Ecuador, Chuzalongo, which follows a mythological Andean creature who takes the form of a child and then turns into a monster that feeds on blood.

Politics are never far from the festival’s Cuban offerings and this year’s choice, Rigoberto López’s El Mayor, looks in a fictional way at the life of political and military leader Cuba’s 19th century war for independence, Ignacio Agramonte Loynaz.

Javier del Cid’s El Ojo y El Muro from Guatemala is set in the 2030s, where the city of Gabhán is under a totalitarian government. But Alba, part of an underground network, provides vital assistance at a hospital.

Most of the films throw light into the societies of present-day Latin America, with Argentine director Marcos Carnevale’s Goyo telling the story of a museum guide with Asperger’s syndrome, who falls in love with a new security guard.

Just as up-to-date is the closing night film from Colombia, Laura Mora’s The Kings of the World, winner of the Silver Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival, about five children who live as a clan on the streets of Medellín, but go on a dangerous journey.

“Our festival shows that we are very diverse,” Figueroa says. “ We don’t all do things the same way, but we do share a lot.”

The 20th Latin American Film Festival, Kambri Cinema ANU, Until August 31. Free entry. All details at anufg.org.au