New York International Latino Film Festival 2011

ABALLAYis the ultimate Latin American western, a return to the grassroots and those legendary adventures of the unscrupulous gaucho ‘malo’. Canvas meets celluloid in this cinematic indie piece, an adaptation by award winner director Fernando Spiner(Adios Querida Luna)from a short story by Antonio Di Benedetto, with Nazareno Casero ('Buenos Aires', '1977') and Claudio Rissi ('Nine Queens'). Filmed entirely in the remote Tucuman region, ABALLAY is a true sample of fine alternative south of the border. Winner of 4 international awards, Variety recommended.

Angel is an honest accountant who endeavors to do his best at work. Nevertheless, he gets fired. With a family to sustain and no job in sight, he sets aside his values and gets entangled with a third-rate band of thieves where he discovers friendship, loyalty and self-esteem -- but no money. With his foray into the criminal underworld a failure, Angel is forced to find another way to survive.

Negus, Chale, Sapo, and Chata are teenagers living in Mexico’s Guerrero colony. Friends since childhood, they have too much time on their hands and spend most of it drowning their problems in a constant haze of marijuana, lusting after the opposite sex and hanging out at skate parks, graffiti hot spots and hip-hop jam sessions. One day, the foursome have a massive brainstorm — they decide to rob the local cinema! Each finds his or her reason to go ahead with the caper, unaware that the ordeal may threaten the only thing they have — their friendship.

Fonsi is 12-years-old, already creative, clever -- and restless. Living with his mother and her troubled boyfriend, he wants nothing more than to be reunited with his father. When his mother and her boyfriend are forced to flee their hometown, Fonsi's father will reenter his life and his wish will come true -- with devastating and unforeseen consequences.

In the beautiful hills of Chihuahua, young Emilio and his father, Teo, not only deliver the mail, but read letters to the villagers, since most are illiterate. Emilio feels saddened by the mostly difficult stories sent by relatives who moved to the U.S. in search of a better life. When Teo becomes disabled, Emilio takes over the mail route and with great imagination he changes the letters to happy and optimistic stories. Within days, the village is transformed as they enjoy the “supposed” success their loved ones write of. Meanwhile, Emilio meets Elena, and experiences his first love.

Three young theater students, influenced by the acting technique of French theorist Antonin Artaud, begin to experiment with their own lives, searching for real emotions and situations to bring onto the stage. Their obsession with becoming better actors leads them to their darkest sides, surpassing boundaries in ways they never imagined.

After 10 years struggling in New York, Lencho is back in Guatemala, eager to bring artistic expression to his home country silenced by over 30 years of terror. He assembles a collective of artists to produce public art projects of social impact in the hopes of being part of a new Guatemalan awakening. As he labors to coordinate a festival of music, poetry and muralism, he finds himself increasingly haunted by memories of the death of his father, a journalist during the civil war.

After a decade of living in New York, 30-year-old Antonio returns to his native Costa Rica for a short visit. When events force him to stay, he is confronted with everything he has desperately struggled to put in the past: a broken family, an ailing father and a violent country. Unable to run away as usual, Antonio must come to terms with his past in order to take hold of the present and build a better future.

Shantas is a young delinquent living in a sheet-metal house in one of the biggest shantytowns of Argentina, surviving via petty theft. But Shantas is not a simple thief. Within him flows a spiritual force that he barely understands but that pushes him ahead with the full conviction that a part of him is immortal. In a world filled with violence and social inequality, he faces the dangers not only with his gun, but also with the strong belief that nobody can kill him.