GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The Mexican Film Festival, which aims to celebrate Mexican filmmaking and culture, returns to Grand Rapids Saturday for its second year.
The festival will be showing six feature films for free all day long. While all the films are in Spanish, most of them have English subtitles.
All of the films have been produced by Mexican directors.
Daisy Madrigal, board member of the Mexican Heritage Association of West Michigan, said the festival is a great way to learn more about Hispanic culture.
"Here in Grand Rapids, we have a huge Latino population. And what a better way to learn who your neighbor is, than coming out and seeing it for yourself, you know, being part of that through the art of movies," she said.
By seeing from the filmmaker's perspective, Madrigal said she hopes festivalgoers learn more about Mexican culture. She said viewers can feel the emotions of the films even without knowing Spanish or reading subtitles.
"Being able to have somebody share their views of their culture in their way, and being able to share it and then us being able to take part of that I think is amazing, is an amazing thing," Madrigal said.
The films being shown range from a wide variety of topics, including a daughter caring for her mother with Alzheimer's disease, the ongoing fight for women's suffrage and documentaries.
The festival kicks off at the Wealthy Theatre Saturday at 1 p.m. It is free and open to the public. Organizers anticipate the festival will wrap up around 10:30 p.m. after all the movies have been shown.
You can find the full list of films being shown on the theater's website.
This story was edited and corrected, it previously stated there were five short films instead of six feature films.
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