LALIFF 2022 Shorts

Written by Kymm Zuckert

Last week, here in Los Angeles, we had the 21st Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival, or LALIFF, which was five days of features, shorts, animation, and music.

My friend, Pamela Ribon, who co-wrote Ralph Breaks the Internet and Moana, amongst many other things, had a short in the festival called My Year of Dicks,, so I went to see that as part of an evening of shorts that were really universally top notch.

In order of how they were presented, the first was the only dramatic piece, Chiqui (dir. Carlos Cardona, scr. Carlos Cardona, Sophia de Baun). It takes place in 1987, when pregnant Chiqui (Brigitte Silva) and her boyfriend (or husband) Carlos (Sebastian Beltran) emigrate to New Jersey from Colombia. Chiqui was a flight attendant, but being pregnant, speaking no English, and only having a tourist visa means that she can’t get hired by an airline in the states. Carlos wants to be a businessman, but he can only be hired as a construction worker. Neither of them are having the life in America they thought they would get, and Chiqui is frankly, not a nice person. The director dedicated the film to his parents, which leads one to believe that he is the baby in Chiqui’s tummy.

It was smart to put the only drama first, because I don’t know how it would have worked, sandwiched between any of the very funny comedies that followed. Leading the pack worked perfectly.

Next was Más Latina (dir./scr. Janeva Adena Zentz, Tim Young). This was a very funny film about a Latina stand-up comic trying to navigate the different voices in her head to find her authentic self as a comic, while also dealing with her mother who wants her to find a man and have babies, and her aunt who wants her to find a lot of men and have fun. The co-writer/director also plays the lead, and she was just terrific. The film is kind of in a live-action cartoon style with colorful titles on the screen and funny narration, it’s very charming.

Third was the film I came to see, My Year of Dicks (dir. Sara Gunnarsdóttir, scr. Pamela Ribon). The title refers to the year Pam was 15 and was trying her hardest to lose her virginity, the dicks being both literal and also figurative, as the boys both had them, and also were them. It’s an animated film in several chapters, each chapter about a different guy and told in a different style of animation. It is very funny, but also real, and my friend Pam is totally a genius, my completely biased opinion right there.

The incredibly brief Inappropriate Jokes Well Told (dir./scr. Mario Garza) was next, which was literally one minute long, if not shorter. It is a terribly tasteless joke acted out, and it is completely hilarious.

Stoned Breakups: Bonnie (dir./scr. Benjamin-Shalom Rodriguez) seems to be a riff on Drunk History, in that Benjamin-Shalom Rodriguez interviews his mom, Bonnie, as she eats some edibles and tells the story of her terrible second marriage as actors act out her story, lip-synching her words. It is very funny, and, as proved by many years of Drunk History, a tried and true style of storytelling.

Fernanda (dir./scr. Mary Angélica Molina) is about a non-binary person and their roommates who decide that they are not going to let white dudes steal their concepts and ideas and voices and true selves and sell them under the white dude banner. That doesn’t sound particularly hilarious, but it was. It starts with the lead’s breasts talking to them at a party, and ends with a production number in the street, so that’ll give you a clue!

Scene from the film Más Latina

There was one final film, LA 143 (dir. Sergio Monserrate, scr. Olivia Bagan) that I am terribly sorry to say that I missed, because the program started so late that I had to run, so I didn’t actually see it, but I didn’t want to pretend like they didn’t show it. I’m sure it was great, if it lived up to the other shorts in the evening.

A shorts program is a wonderful thing, if one isn’t good, it’ll be 30m tops, and if they are all good, you get a plethora of different voices, stories, and points of view in the same time that you could watch only one. These were good enough that I could see one or two of them long-listed for the Oscars next year. Fingers crossed for Pam!

It was smart to put the only drama first, because I don’t know how it would have worked, sandwiched between any of the very funny comedies that followed. Leading the pack worked perfectly.

Next was Más Latina (dir./scr. Janeva Adena Zentz, Tim Young). This was a very funny film about a Latina stand-up comic trying to navigate the different voices in her head to find her authentic self as a comic, while also dealing with her mother who wants her to find a man and have babies, and her aunt who wants her to find a lot of men and have fun. The co-writer/director also plays the lead, and she was just terrific. The film is kind of in a live-action cartoon style with colorful titles on the screen and funny narration, it’s very charming.

Third was the film I came to see, My Year of Dicks (dir. Sara Gunnarsdóttir, scr. Pamela Ribon). The title refers to the year Pam was 15 and was trying her hardest to lose her virginity, the dicks being both literal and also figurative, as the boys both had them, and also were them. It’s an animated film in several chapters, each chapter about a different guy and told in a different style of animation. It is very funny, but also real, and my friend Pam is totally a genius, my completely biased opinion right there.

The incredibly brief Inappropriate Jokes Well Told (dir./scr. Mario Garza) was next, which was literally one minute long, if not shorter. It is a terribly tasteless joke acted out, and it is completely hilarious.

Stoned Breakups: Bonnie (dir./scr. Benjamin-Shalom Rodriguez) seems to be a riff on Drunk History, in that Benjamin-Shalom Rodriguez interviews his mom, Bonnie, as she eats some edibles and tells the story of her terrible second marriage as actors act out her story, lip-synching her words. It is very funny, and, as proved by many years of Drunk History, a tried and true style of storytelling.

Scene from the film Stoned Breakups: Bonnie

Fernanda (dir./scr. Mary Angélica Molina) is about a non-binary person and their roommates who decide that they are not going to let white dudes steal their concepts and ideas and voices and true selves and sell them under the white dude banner. That doesn’t sound particularly hilarious, but it was. It starts with the lead’s breasts talking to them at a party, and ends with a production number in the street, so that’ll give you a clue!

There was one final film, LA 143 (dir. Sergio Monserrate, scr. Olivia Bagan) that I am terribly sorry to say that I missed, because the program started so late that I had to run, so I didn’t actually see it, but I didn’t want to pretend like they didn’t show it. I’m sure it was great, if it lived up to the other shorts in the evening.

A shorts program is a wonderful thing, if one isn’t good, it’ll be 30m tops, and if they are all good, you get a plethora of different voices, stories, and points of view in the same time that you could watch only one. These were good enough that I could see one or two of them long-listed for the Oscars next year. Fingers crossed for Pam!