Latino Films Dominate AFI/OAS Fest

In addition to the International Documentary Film Festival, which runs Friday through Oct. 29, the Sunset 5 also will host the AFI/OAS Americas Festival, a presentation of 23 recent films from Canada, the United States., Mexico, South America--as well as from Spain-with Latino films predominating. Meanwhile, the UCLA Film Archive starts its two-weekend Contemporary Mexican Film presentation Friday in UCLA’S Melnitz Theater.

At a time when the exhibition of Spanish-language films, outside the occasional art theater offering, is in decline, audiences will have a great deal to choose from. The Organization of American States presentation is tremendously diverse, ranging from “Sevillanos,” top veteran Spanish director Carlos Saura’s latest celebration of music and dance, to documentaries on philosopher/activist Noam Chomsky and Zaire’s first premier Patrice Lumumba and a Costa Rican horror picture--”La Segua”--involving a tale of colonial history, witchcraft and love.

Among the films available for preview in the AFI/OAS Fest is Robert Mugge’s straightforward and infectious “Pride and Joy: The Story of Alligator Records” (screening Saturday, which intercuts portions of one of the record company’s 20th anniversary concerts (held at Philadelphia’s jam-packed Chestnut Cabaret) with interviews with Alligator’s founder Bruce Iglauer and, more briefly, some of his recording artists, such as pianist-singer Katie Webster and blues shouter Koko Taylor, who are also seen in exuberant performance. The Chicago-based Iglauer, who remarks that blues “reaches in and rings you out,” comes across as savvy and dedicated. A very different offering, from Venezuela, is Carlos Azpurua’s raw, fiery expose, “Shoot to Kill” (Friday at 7 p.m.), in which a reporter, digging into the death of a man during a brutal police raid on a tenement, uncovers widespread government corruption.

Among the films to be screened at at UCLA’s Contemporary Mexican Cinema presentation, are a pair of lurid allegories involving innocence and corruption. The first is Dana Rotberg’s “Angel of Fire” (Friday at 7:30 p.m.), which tells of the spiritual odyssey of a pretty teen-age performer (Evangelina Sosa) in a wonderfully rag-tag circus. Made pregnant by her own father, a dying clown, she is defiantly proud of her condition, which gets her thrown out of the circus and into the arms of a religious fanatic (who brings to mind Piper Laurie in “Carrie”). Rotberg’s tone is so relentlessly deadpan, everything that happens is so ultra-dramatic and bizarre, that the film becomes darkly humorous, intentionally or otherwise.

More substantial and less pretentious, the veteran Arturo Ripstein’s “The Realm of Fortune” (Sunday at 2 p.m.) follows the rise and fall of a simple rural man (Ernesto Gomez Cruz) whose unexpected success with a cherished fighting cock leads him to a lucrative gambling career until he is overcome by greed. Gomez Cruz is formidable but there’s an even more triumphant portrayal by Blanca Guerra as the seemingly tough and shrewd cabaret singer ruined by her love for the gambler, who regards her as a good luck talisman. As with “Angel of Death,” the film is steeped with enticingly seedy and colorful individuals and atmosphere.

Information for AFI/OAS Fest: (213) 856-7707; Sunset 5 phone: (213) 848-3500; UCLA Film Archive: (310) 206-FILM, 206-8013.