More than 21 years have passed since the very first screenings of the Chicago Latino Film Festival were projected on a concrete wall. This year, the International Latino Cultural Center of Chicago (ILCC) will showcase more than 100 films from Latin America, Spain, Portugal and the United States at some of Chicago’s most renowned theaters, including Pipers Alley, Landmark’s Century Centre Cinema and Facets Cinematheque, as part of the 21st Annual Chicago Film Festival taking place April 8-20, 2005.The Festival will kick off with the Opening Night Gala and Chicago premier of the Chilean, Spanish and Argentine film, Cachimba at Northwestern University’s Thorne Auditorium on Friday, April 8. Cachimba tells the story of an art lover who discovers a musty old "museum" full of art from a little-known Chilean painter and works desperately to save them. Director Silvio Caiozzi and Producer Guadalupe Bornand are expected to be in attendance.A Night of Spain will be held on Monday, April 11, at the Pipers Alley Theater with the featured film from Spain, Te Doy Mis Ojos/Take My Eyes, about a woman escaping the horror of domestic violence. The film begins at 6:00 p.m. with a party to follow at Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding. Saturday, April 16 highlights Noche Mexicana at Northwestern University’s Thorne Auditorium in Chicago, featuring the Mexican film El Mago/The Magician. The film shares the story of how a terminally ill street performer spends his final days, takes care of unfinished business and plays one last trick on everyone. The reception featuring a live mariachi band will begin at 6:00 p.m. and include an anticipated appearance by Director Jaime Aparicio.The Festival concludes with our Closing Night Fiesta on Wednesday, April 20, at the AMC River East 21, where Brazilian director Carlos Diegues will receive the 2005 Gloria Lifetime Achievement Award, followed by the screening of his film, Deus é Brasileiro/God is Brazilian. This Brazilian comedy is about God’s need for a vacation and his search for a fill-in. Joining Diegues will be Producer Renata de Almeida Magalhães. The Brazilian-themed after-party ending the Festival will be held at Pazzo’s (NBC Tower) at 8:30 p.m.Special Programs- The Made in the Chicago segments allow for viewers to see Latino life as depicted by Chicago filmmakers. A few of the films in the 2005 Festival are: La Migra by Juan Frausto, the story of a Mexican-American attorney assigned to defend a border patrolman who has shot a boy in the back; Boricua by Marisol Torres, which shows the hopes and dreams of some Humboldt Park residents; Bulls of Suburbia by Alex LeMay, an autobiographical account of an American bullfighter; and the thriller Para Matar a un Asesino/To Kill a Killer by Ricardo Islas, about a hit man paying for his deeds.   - Soundbites on Celluloid shows how music rises above the barriers of life to inspire cultural traditions and provide musical therapy to deal with obstacles in life. A few of the films in the segment are: Carnival of the Caribbean which transports the viewer to carnival festivities in three Caribbean countries; La Fabri-K: The Cuban Hip-Hop Factory, which follows this Havana music collective on the road to their groundbreaking performance at the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem; Lima Was!, which celebrates Peruvian culture and identity; Pasajero: A Journey of Time and Memory, a film which reminds us of the role music (in this case, pre-commercial Mariachi) plays in defining our identity; and Under the Radar, an Afro-Cuban music documentary.- As part of our Animation Creations segment, Argentinean professional animators and instructors Esteban Javier Gaggino and Marcela Ruidiaz will be in Chicago during this year’s Film Festival to work with young students from the H.B. Stowe School of Fine and Performing Arts to teach them the art of storytelling through animation. The result will be a short film, which will premiere at the 22nd Chicago Latino Film Festival in 2006. Included this year’s Animation Creations segment are the shorts Tortilla Moon and Misadventures of a day or Life is not a margarine ad.- In collaboration with Latino Art Beat and Columbia College Chicago’s Latino Affairs Department, the Festival is able to show the works of budding Chicago filmmakers through the Student Segment. Films range from the abstract to animations and to the everyday demands of growing up, often addressing the sometimes taboo topics of drug abuse and peer pressure.- The Matinee Outreach Program is in its 10th year and provides free weekday matinees for grammar and high school students. The Festival reaches more than 3,000 students in the Chicago Public Schools, as well as other school districts. Students can experience the rich diversity of Latino culture through films and talk directly with some of the directors.- The Women in Film segment honors all the women directors behind the camera and in command of their projects who are participating in this year’s Festival, with a series of 12 features and 14 shorts.- The Gay and Lesbian Ingredient showcases El Misterio de los Almendros/The Almond Tree Mystery, by Mexico’s first openly gay director, Jaime Humberto Hermosillo, who is frequently compared to Pedro Almodóvar. Hermosillo directed the groundbreaking film Doña Herlinda y su Hijo (1985); and Luis Ospina’s documentary Desazón Suprema/The Supreme Uneasiness, about Fernando Vallejo, the controversial gay Colombian writer who has been exiled to Mexico.- In addition to our regular Size Doesn’t Matter series of shorts, which will be shown with selected features throughout the Festival, we also will present Latino Concentrate (with pleasant side effects): The Best Shorts of the Latino World on April 9 and 10 at Facets Cinématheque.For more information on the 21st Annual Chicago Latino Film Festival or to obtain a film schedule, please visit www.latinoculturalcenter.org or call (312) 409-1757. Please see the fact sheet for gala event information; for tickets to the gala events, please visit www.ticketweb.com or call (312) 431-1330.Locations and ResourcesThe Festival takes place in Chicago at Landmark’s Century Centre Cinema, 2828 N. Clark Street, Pipers Alley, 1608 N. Wells Street, Facets Cinematheque, 1517 W. Fullerton Avenue, and various community centers and universities in Chicago. The film schedule will be available by March 21 on the ILCC website at www.latinoculturalcenter.org. Beginning April 1, a daily schedule of films will be available on the ILCC hotline at (312) 409-1757.About the Chicago Latino Film Festival The Chicago Latino Film Festival is produced by the International Latino Cultural Center of Chicago (ILCC) in cooperation with Columbia College Chicago. As part of the ILCC mission, the Festival serves as a vehicle to break the barriers of stereotypes and provoke the audience to challenge mainstream ideals of the Latino identity by showing, through film, that Latinos are defined by more than 20 Iberoamerican countries and come from all social and racial backgrounds. Corporate sponsors of the 2005 Chicago Latino Film Festival include:American Airlines, bp, Chicago Tribune, Hoy Newspaper, Univision Chicago, Hewitt Associates, Chicago Transit Authority, Jewel-Osco, La Raza Newspaper, Pepsi USA, Piñata Graphics, Praetorian, Telemundo Chicago, American Latin TV, Anheuser-Busch, Aura Queue, Banco Popular North America, EGEDA, SGAE, Exelon Proud Parent of ComEd, Illinois Film Office, Harris Bank, Hispanic Magazine, Nordstrom, Univision Radio, WTTW Ch. 11, and WYCC-TV Ch. 20, AARP, American Family Insurance, Chivas Regal, Cingular Wireless, FuturaMix.com, Joe’s Sports Bar, Motorola, Prado & Renteria, Seneca Hotel & Suites, Starbucks Coffee Company, State Farm Insurance, and Northern Trust.Additional funding is provided by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, the Illinois Arts Council, the MacArthur Fund for Arts and Culture at Prince, the Kenneth and Marcia Dam Family Charitable Fund, the Woods Fund of Chicago, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.To schedule a media interview with an available director, producer or Chicago Latino Film Festival representative, please contact Dru Shipper at (312) 344-8244.