The San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival has a strong selection of Latino/a films. Here are just a couple highlights; check out their website for more.

Rara, Argentina
Both a poignant coming-of-age tale and a based-on-a-true-story account of a same-gender marriage threatened by social forces, begins with a tableau of relative domestic harmony: Paula (Mariana Loyola) lives with her partner, Lía, and her two daughters, Sarah and Catalina. Her ex-husband, Victor, lives nearby with his new wife, Nicole, and the girls shift easily between the two homes. But internal tensions and external pressures slowly begin to unravel the family tapestry. Standard mother-daughter squabbles and explosive moments of adolescent angst that are par for the course in any family spark heightened anxieties in a family with lesbian parents living in a conservative-leaning community—an outwardly tolerant environment with a latent underpinning of insinuation and judgment. 

Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four, USA
During the “Satanic ritual abuse panic” of the 1980–90s, a pervasive fear rang throughout conservative communities and the media as cult activity, sexual perversion, and homosexuality were often linked as interconnected “evils.” (Remember the West Memphis Three of the Paradise Lost documentaries?) At the tail end of this hysteria came the disconcerting case of four Latina lesbian women in San Antonio, Texas, who in 1994 were accused of a heinous sexual assault against two young girls. Southwest of Salem is an extraordinary account of the nightmare that unfolded for these women—a nightmare that continues to this day. 

San Francisco: June 16 - June 26. Full lineup and details here.