Small treasures at a Latino film fest

Carlos Sorin’s droll “Historias Minimas” (Minimal Stories) is a classic feel-good movie embracing the human comedy in the spirit of Alessandro Blasetti’s “Times Gone By” and Max Ophuls’ “Le Plaisir” in that it turns upon small incidents revealing the gentler aspects of the interplay of fate and character. It ranks among the most appealing offerings in the seventh annual Latino International Film Festival, which begins Saturday.

Sorin has aptly said his film, which screens Sunday at 7:30 p.m., is about “the precariousness of desires.” It focuses on three individuals in the remote Patagonian town of Fitz Roy, all eager to get to Port San Julian, 200 miles away. Maria Flores (Javiera Bravo), a poor young wife and mother, must get there the next day to claim a prize she has won on a game show. Don Justo (Antonio Benedictis) is the elderly owner of the local grocery now run by his son; he is hitchhiking to a highway patrol station on the road to San Julian to retrieve his lost dog.

Traveling salesman Roberto (Javier Lombardo) recognizes Don Justo, offering him a ride. Divorced and lonely, Roberto wants to deliver a surprise birthday cake to the child of a young widow with whom he is smitten. None of these goals are earth-shaking, but the fact that their journey takes place against vast Patagonian vistas has the effect of making their humble missions loom larger.

Luis Kelly’s rousing “Alex Lora: Rock ‘n’ Roll Slave,” Sunday at 5:15 p.m., offers a portrait of the Mexican rock star as energetic as its subject, who for three decades has enthralled fans with his hard-driving anthems attacking government corruption and the upper classes and celebrating life, love and pride in la raza. Offstage and on, Lora revels in an earthy, uninhibited humor -- his jokes are as outrageous as they are hilarious -- and a gleeful defiance of authority. With his band El Tri, which includes his wife and singing partner Chela Lora, Lora draws crowds by the thousands in Peru, Spain and Mexico; they tend to become unruly, and never more so than at the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip.

Jose Joffily’s “Two Lost Souls on a Dirty Night” (Dois Perdidos Numa Noite Suja), Friday at 9:30 p.m., is essentially a two-character drama, adapted by Paulo Hahn from Plinio Marcos’ 1962 play. Lurid and theatrical, it is nonetheless an entertaining, well-wrought melodrama about two Brazilians who cross paths in Manhattan. Tonho (Roberto Bomtempo) is a decent fellow, perhaps 40, who naively came to New York to seek his fortune, but after five years in the U.S. he is stuck as a subway janitor.

While on the job, he comes to the rescue of the waiflike prostitute Paco (Debora Falabella), who is being severely beaten by a man who has discovered that Paco is not a boy but a girl whose real name is Rita. (In the play, Paco was male, which is more credible.) They form a bond of sorts, but the question quickly becomes whether Paco, increasingly out of control, will destroy Tonho before he can escape.

Miguel Albaladejo’s “Rancor,” Wednesday at 3:45 p.m., is a minor revenge drama that makes good use of the bustling atmosphere of its summer resort setting on the east coast of Spain. It is most notable as the film debut of the popular singer Lolita. The sultry blond is well-cast as Chelo, a singer who lands a gig only to run into a shady man from her past, Toni (Jorge Perugorria), with whom she is eager to even a score. Chelo’s scheming builds to a calamitous finale that is amusingly true to human nature.

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Latino International Film Festival

When: July 19-Aug. 2

Where: Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood

Info: (323) 469-9066; www.latinofilm.org