aluCine Latin Film & Media Arts Festival is pleased to announce that Juan Andrés Arango’s La Playa D.C. will make its Canadian premiere when it opens the thirteenth annual film programme of the multi-disciplinary festival. A native-born Bogotáno, writer/director Arango has trained and worked in his homeland, Canada and the Netherlands. He returned to Bogotá to shoot La Playa D.C., his debut feature, which he will personally present on March 27 at 7:30pm at Jackman Hall inside the Art Gallery of Ontario.

La Playa D.C. garnered positive reviews from an international roster of critics when screened in the Un Certain Regard programme at the prestigious Festival de Cannes in May 2012.

Arango’s screenplay uses the familiar coming-of-age genre as a canvas on which he paints a visual essay on the social construct of Afro-Latinidad in Colombia – a sampling of this year’s festival theme— as seen through the lives of three teenage brothers: Tomas (Luis Carlos Guevara), Jairo (Andrés Murillo) and Chaco (James Solis). The boys fled to the capital from their formerly- peaceful home on the country’s western seaboard, driven out by the civil war which claimed the life of their father. Chaco has spent time in “el Norte” – the USA – and has returned sporting the latest ghetto-fabulous fashions and hairstyles. Jairo is hothead of the trio, forever falling foul of dangerous foes. Quiet-spoken Tomas, a lanky lad who looks much older than his 13 years, recognizes that he’s going to need a trade if he’s to have any chance of a decent life. And as Afro-Colombian males favor massively intricate braided designs – painstakingly executed with clippers and razor-blades – there’s no shortage of work for a lad with a steady hand and a degree of artistic flair.

For more info on the festival please visit: aluCine