Pragda Spanish Film Festival: Pelo Malo
Pragda Spanish Film Festival: Pelo Malo
Director:Mariana Rondón / 93 min / Release Year: 2013 / Production Year: 2013 / Drama
Drama Language: Spanish with English Subtitles
Nationality: Venezuela
Cast:Samuel Lange, Samantha Castillo
The fourth film in the Pragda Film Festival is Bad Hair [Pelo Malo].
“A nine-year-old boy’s preening obsession with straightening his hair elicits a tidal wave of homophobic panic in his hard-working mother, in this tender but clear-eyed coming-of-age tale. Junior is a beautiful boy, with big brown eyes, a delicate frame, and a head of luxurious dark curls. But Junior aches to straighten those curls, to acquire a whole new look befitting his emerging fantasy image of himself as a long-haired singer. As the opportunity approaches to have his photo taken for the new school year, that ache turns into a fiery longing. Junior’s mother, Marta (Samantha Castillo), is barely hanging on. The father of her children has died, she recently lost her job as a security guard, and she now struggles to put a few arepas on the table for Junior and his baby brother.
Junior doesn’t even know yet what it means to be gay, but the very notion prompts Marta to set out to “correct” Junior’s condition before it fully takes hold. This is a story of people doing what they feel they have to, partly out of fear, but also out of love.” – Diana Vargas, Toronto International Film Festival.
Ana Patricia Rodríguez, from the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, will give a brief introduction before the film showing.
The 2014 Festival is presented by Fatemeh Keshavarz, Director of the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures; Laurie Frederik, Director of the Latin American Studies Center, and Juan Carlos Quintero-Herencia, Head of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. The Festival Coordinator is José M. Naharro, also of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.
Learn about other films in the festival:
Cows Wearing Glasses [Las Vacas Con Gafas], October 6
The Cinema Hold Up [Asalto Al Cine], October 13
From the Land to Your Table [¿Qué culpa tiene el tomate?], October 27
Bad Hair [Pelo Malo], November 10
Barefoot in the Kitchen [Con la Pata Quebrada], November 17
The film festival is made possible with support from the PRAGDA Spanish Film Club and Spain Arts and Culture.