When it was announced this past summer that all courses at Yale University would be online and gatherings would continue to be limited due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Margherita Tortora, senior lecturer in Spanish and Portuguese, had to decide what to do about the annual Latino and Iberian Film Festival she organizes. “I said, ‘I have two possibilities: cancel or do it online,’” said Tortora, though in her heart she knew there was only one choice she could possibly make.
The festival, known as LIFFY, will make its online debut this week, running today through Sunday Nov. 15. The festival will have daily offerings that celebrate films and filmmakers from the many countries where Spanish and Portuguese are spoken. All films and events are online and free with registration, and all films are screened with English subtitles.
This year marks the festival’s sixth as LIFFY, and its first online, and no one is happier about it than Tortora.
“I really wanted to continue,” she said. “So many were looking forward to it and we have a real following now.”
The festival originated 11 years ago. In its first five years, it was known as the New England Festival of Ibero American Cinema (NEFIAC). It was a nonprofit and held in both New Haven and Providence.
“I was the only one in New Haven doing it,” said Tortora, who was working with others in Providence and a variety of cities. After a friend moved away and Tortora considered quitting, “so many wrote to me asking ‘when is the festival?’ So I went to the Council of Latin America and Iberian Studies,” at Yale, “and asked for support.” The festival was renamed the Latino and Iberian Film Festival at Yale (LIFFY) and has remained so for the past six years. Again, Tortora could not be happier.
“It’s great having it right at Yale,” she said. “We have the full support of CLIAS, the MacMillan Center, and the Kempf fund. It’s a godsend.”
Yale also figured into how they made the new online aspects of the festival work.
“I was a judge for the Dominican Film Festival in New York and got to see how different platforms worked,” said Tortora. “We had great technical capabilities through Yale. We also had to make sure we showed them safely, so they are not copied, and still be able to make them public to those who register.”
Tortora cited “Team LIFFY” — including Daniel Juarez, Asia Neupane, Daniel Vieria, Marilyn Wilkes, and Tony Sudal — with being integral in making the festival what it is, including selecting this year’s theme: “Bringing Diversity, Truth and Justice into Focus.”
Karen Ponzio Photo
Margherita Tortora.
“I had a general idea I talked over with the team, refined it with Daniel and Asia, and I talked it over with my sons, too,” said Tortora. Tortora’s sons, musicians David and Ceschi Ramos, also helped her with other aspects of the festival, including proofreading, art for the jury prizes and music for the trailer, which includes a sample of Ceschi’s song Any War.
“We played with the idea of 20/20 vision being ‘perfect,’ and then there’s ‘lux et veritas’ from the Yale crest, that stands for truth and light,” Tortora said. She also wanted to address “the state of the country” with this theme, shining that light and sharpening that focus on what can bring us all together and illuminate those truths, which have been lacking in recent years.
“Disinformation spread lies as truth, especially dealing with our neighbors, what is going on with the children at the border breaks my heart,” she said. “All these people who come here work so hard and contribute so much to the economy.”
Tortora also emphasized the hard work of the filmmakers involved in this festival. “These projects are made with the sweat of their brows and with passion,” she said. “In Spanish there is a distinction between the realizador — the one who has the idea and sees every aspect of the film from A to Z — and a director. All of our films are made by filmmakers, not just directors.”
“They are creative people putting their own money up to make films,” she continued. “They show a reality not shown in our media: the real lives of these people. How they live their realities gives us these intra-stories, a microhistory, and how they live their true lives, a microcosmos. These fabulous filmmakers who put it all on the line … they show us we have more in common than what makes us different.”
There are 60 films being shown this year. According to Tortora, there are “quite a few U.S. premieres. These are films you can only see in festivals. They are all independent.”
Tortora highlighted the films that tell “simple stories,” including Mirando al mar from Spain, about an elderly couple “who meet and fall in love at the end of their lives,” and El encanto from Argentina, about a young couple “together over 10 years and the woman wants to be a mom and the guy has cold feet.” As Tortora emphasized, “these are stories anyone can relate to.”
She also noted the “timely films,” including four short films made during the pandemic by film students from InCine, Quito, Ecuador, where Tortora teaches a class every summer (though this past year she taught the class online). Those films are available Monday all day, with an additional filmmaker conversation available via a Zoom meeting at 1 p.m. There are also three “microshorts” about the pandemic by Colombian filmmaker Catherine French Castellanos being shown on Wednesday, which is also the day of the filmmaker conversation where viewers can meet the members of the 2020 LIFFY jury. That jury includes award-winning Colombian filmmaker Victor Guavira, Cynthia Sabat from Buenos Aires, and Guatemalan producer Bea Gallardo. According to Tortora the jurors “work over and above the call of duty.”
“They watched all 60 films and are judging them and are also doing a panel discussion, and Bea is also on the women’s panel discussion. They are all incredibly busy and took the time, and all said they really loved watching the films.”
Gender is another main theme this year, and Thursday’s schedule includes not only three short transgender-themed films, but also a feature documentary, Maria Luiza, from Brazil about Maria Luiza da Silva, the first transgender person in the history of the Brazilian armed forces.
Thursday also brings another filmmaker conversation — this time a panel discussion with women in the film industry that includes 11 women filmmakers, as well as a film in the morning for New Haven Public School students.
“It used to be limited to 250 at the Whitney in person,” said Tortora. “Now 500 can watch.” The film — Terrible by Alejandro Malowicki from Argentina — “is for kids 8 to 100,” she added with a laugh, “about a puppeteer haunted by one of his evil puppets that comes to life.”
In addition to the shorts, features, and panel discussions, many filmmakers have sent videos made especially for this festival to replace the typical Q&As done when in person “to talk about the films in a personal way,” said Tortora, though there are two live Q&As scheduled for the opening and closing of the festival.
Tortora continues to be passionate about bringing the festival together and is grateful to those who contribute and assist her throughout. “I personally received all submissions and I’m personally in contact with all filmmakers, who are so amazing and so willing to help me,” she said. “I do all of this as a volunteer, but I love it. It’s my passion. It’s a lot of work. I finish one and I basically start the next.”
But she feels the work is all worth it, to give people another way to see the world through these films, to give them “insight into that different reality, even if it is fiction,” she said. “It’s the little things: the look in their eyes, the food of different countries … it is all important.”
LIFFY runs from Monday, Nov. 9 to Sunday, Nov. 15th. All films and events are free with registration, which can be completed through the LIFFY website here.
This is a great program and I am glad to see NHI featuring it once again. In the past, there have been few clicks for it, so NHI stopped covering it. Perhaps, the steaming format will be more convenient. Yes, some of the festival films are pretty artsy, but not are are, and given the huge latino population here, I would think folks would jump at the opportunity for free, first run film in their native language. (Plus, there are english sub-titles for gringos like me!) This year, as noted, the films are leaning toward more "timely" documentaries.