By Mason Allen Buskirk
The semester here at ESU is flying by like dandelion seeds in the breeze. Though summer, a time of year spent with close friends going out to see movies, is over, a momentous occasion is right around the corner.
The Third Annual Latino Heritage Month Film Festival is here, open to the public and free! The event will begin today, Sept. 24, and will conclude on Oct. 15.
Films will be screened both on campus, as well as off campus at the Pocono Community Theater (PCT) on Courtland St. in East Stroudsburg.
The festival is brought to you courtesy of the Office of Multicultural Affairs, the Spanish Club and the Department of Modern Languages, with Dr. Annie Mendoza as the coordinator.
Things will kick off today at 2 p.m. in Stroud 113 with a showing of the film Paraíso / Paradise (2014). If you miss it, don’t worry, Paraíso / Paradise will be shown again Oct. 2 at 7 p.m. at PCT.
Don’t speak Spanish? Not a problem! All of the films are shown in Spanish with English subtitles so that there is no excuse to skip this cultural event.
“The Third Annual Latino Heritage Month Film Festival at East Stroudsburg University brings contemporary Spanish, Latin American, and U.S. Latino cinema to ESU in order to introduce students and the surrounding communities to the language and cultures of these diverse communities,” said Dr. Mendoza.
“The film festival is part of the activities during ESU’s annual celebration of Latino Heritage Month, and is open to all of the ESU community, as well as the public. The film festival welcomes the participation and attendance of community members from the Poconos and outside areas,” she continued
The festival is intended to bring ESU and our surrounding community together to celebrate and appreciate the Latino heritage and culture of the United States.
“I wanted to contribute an activity to the Latino Heritage Month Celebration that could repeat yearly, and I thought that a Latino film festival was something that this area lacked,” Dr. Mendoza stated.
“The films Dr. Mendoza chose deal with culture, race and sometimes particular customs of a certain country. Each of the films is based out of a different country; Mexico, Chile, Spain, El Salvador, Adelante, Uraguay and the United States are just a few,” said the Director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs, Cornelia Sewell.
For more information and a complete list of films, times and locations, please visit esu.edu/ML.