Real Women Have Curves screening will take place in-person at the Mello Center
By Hannah Hagemann, Santa Cruz Sentinal
February 24, 2022
WATSONVILLE — Local nonprofit arts organization the Watsonville Film Festival is set to launch its 10th annual festival beginning March 11, which will feature more than 30 award-winning, local and student films.
The festival centers on the theme of “10 Years Cultivating Community Through Film.” It includes both virtual and in-person components. Selected films focus on Latina and Latino art, activism, resistance and community and will be screened online for free at watsonvillefilmfest.org through March 20.
Consuelo Alba, director of the festival, pointed to program highlights such as Academy Award nominee “The Mole Agent” by director Maité Alberdi, double-Sundance winner “Identifying Features” by director Fernanda Valadez and Mexican Ariel Award nominee “Things We Dare Not Do” by director Bruno Santamaría.
Some of the Watsonville Film Festival Selections are featured on this poster. (Contributed graphic — Watsonville Film Festival)
“We are excited and proud to celebrate a decade of the storytelling and artistry of the Latinx community in front of, and behind, the camera,” Alba said in a prepared release. “This year we are presenting an incredibly powerful selection of films, most of them directed by women.”
The film festival will also honor “Real Women Have Curves” at an in-person screening event at the Henry J. Mello Center for the Performing Arts in Watsonville. The 2002 film – which shot Latina actress America Ferrera to fame – continues to make ripples today. It earned a Sundance Audience Award and was recently inducted into the Library of Congress National Film Registry.
Playwright Josefina Lopez based “Real Women Have Curves” on her own life story, and co-produced the film. Lopez will attend the Watsonville Film Festival on March 12 at the Mello Center for the screening, and give remarks there, according to Alba.
At the in-person event, seven emerging Latino and Latina filmmakers from the Santa Cruz County and Pájaro Valley regions chosen for the film festival’s inaugural ‘Cine Se Puede fellowship’ will also be honored.
The virtual program also includes several local films, including fiction shorts “Amor en Cuarentena” and “Disposable,” experimental film “Oda a los Frijoles” and the documentaries “La Perla del Pacifico” and “The Work of Art.” The screening of Disposable will be a world premiere.
“We are proud to present another great program this year. The outpouring of support to celebrate our 10th birthday has been amazing,” Alba said in a prepared release.
IF YOU GO
WHAT: 10th Annual Watsonville Film Festival.
WHEN: March 11-March 20.
WHERE: watsonvillefilmfest.org.
SPECIAL IN-PERSON PROGRAM: 6 p.m. March 12 at the Henry Mello Center, 250 E. Beach St. Watsonville; register online to reserve a seat.