Foreign Film - Tumblr Posts
October 2020 Watchlist: Hispanic Heritage Month
Mid-September to mid-October is Hispanic Heritage Month: a celebration of cultures in the Spanish-speaking word. We love our foreign language selection, and going through it we found we had recommendations from every majority Spanish-speaking country/territory on the planet! Here are some of our faves.
If you'd like to see the full list, our synopsis, why we recommend, and who should watch, subscribe at $5/month on our Patreon @westsidevideo! We’re also prepared to explain the difference between Latino/a/e/x and Hispanic terms if you need to ask an educating-forward party instead of making your friends teach you.
Argentina
La historia oficial (The Official Story)
Bolivia
Erase una vez en Bolivia (Once Upon A Time In Bolivia)
Chile
Una mujer fantástica (A Fantastic Woman)
Colombia
El abrazo de la serpiente (Embrace Of The Serpent)
Costa Rica
El despertar de las hormigas (The Awakening Of The Ants)
Cuba
Fresa y chocolate (Strawberry And Chocolate)
Dominican Republic
Carpinteros (Woodpeckers)
Ecuador
Qué tan lejos (How Much Further)
El Salvador
El lugar mas pequeño (The Tiniest Place)
Guatemala
La Llorona (2019)
Honduras
El espíritu de mi mamá (The Spirit of my Mother)
Mexico
Y tu mamá también
Nicaragua
La Yuma
Panama
Caja 25 (Box 25)
Paraguay
Las herederas (The Heiresses)
Peru
Contracorriente (Undertow)
Puerto Rico
Lo que le pasó a Santiago (What Happened To Santiago)
Spain
El orfanato (The Orphanage)
Uruguay
La noche de 12 años (A Twelve-Year Night)
Venezuela
Pelo malo (Bad Hair)
I stumbled across some foreign productions via Netflix not so long ago and I have to say: I love it! This same storytelling of western (especially American) movies and series became so monotonous and boring over time. Yes, other countries don't always have as much money for productions, but are still very talented in telling and visualizing stories. And by seeing these other cultures portrayed by native compatriots, you learn something too! You get insight into behaviors and values as they are common there. It is shown that not the whole world behaves the same. Films from other countries show you small details in the behavior towards each other or different problems among themselves on which you can not look as a tourist or person in the event.
So I hope my bad english is understandable enough ^^"
I feel like I should say this in a nicer way because I get not everyone is used to trying out new things but... Please try media from non-english speaking countries. It's likely you will find it strange and hard to follow, but that's because you got used to the western way of building a narrative and you will need to watch a couple of things from that culture before you get used to their way of doing things. Sometimes you'll like it better.
And yeah, the budget will be lower than your average HBO show, but good cinema is not dependant on budgets. There are plenty of gorgeous productions with great writing and acting that are worth watching. And when you watch media made by people from other cultures, you will learn unexpected things about that culture, about the language, the customs and habits people have and all the details western filmmakers would never bother adding in. Writers from those countries will also pepper in subtle and less subtle nods to current sociopolitical issues they want to address, which again, western filmmakers telling stories from another country's history just wouldn't have the knowledge needed to add that many layers to their narrative.
And if you keep hearing cool stories about South Asian historical figures or events from Ancient Chinese history but you've never watched a Bollywood film or a Chinese historical drama, ask yourself why that is and why you feel the need for Hollywood to tell these stories.
Click this Google Meet link tonight @ 8 est to watch The Square by Ruben Östlund.
https://meet.google.com/jcg-tbjk-qgo