Ibero American Film Festival at Lafayette College
September 30-October 28, 2026
Every Wednesday at 7pm
Landis Cinema, William C. Buck Hall (Williams Arts Campus)
1) La Salsa Vive (Salsa Lives!) (2025) / Juan Carvajal / Colombia / 101 mins
Wednesday, September 30, 7pm
Pre-screening snacks starting at 6:30 PM in Landis Cinema lobby
Spanish with English subtitles
This electrifying documentary traces the music’s journey from its gritty, migratory roots in 1960s New York to its modern-day home in Cali, Colombia—the city where salsa found its ultimate devotion, celebrating its legacy and power to unite cultures.
Director Juan Carvajal offers a vibrant journey through a genre born from Afro-Cuban rhythms—mambo, guaracha, guaguancó—fused with the energy of New York jazz, and which found its second home in Cali, Colombia.
The film traces with historical rigor the musical round trip between Havana, New York, and Cali, showing how salsa became a shared language across cultures. It delves into everyday life in Cali to portray dancers, collectors, young enthusiasts, and veteran masters who keep the tradition alive in cabarets, competitions, and streets. Featuring rare archival footage and intimate reflections from icons like Rubén Blades, Henry Fiol, and Willie Rosario, it celebrates the popular resilience of a genre that remains identity, passion, and community.
2) Miocardio (Myocardium) (2024) /José Manuel Carrasco/ Spain / 77 mins
Wednesday, October 7, 7pm
Pre-screening snacks starting at 6:30 PM in Landis Cinema lobby
Spanish with English subtitles
Directed by José Manuel Carrasco, this profound and emotionally resonant “cardiac comedy” about second chances and open wounds follows Pablo (Vito Sanz, On This Side of the World), a man unraveling as he enters middle age, haunted by the ghost of his wife who has left him and the ghost of his second novel he can’t seem to write. Hitting rock bottom one morning, his phone rings mysteriously. It’s Ana—the girl who broke his heart more than fifteen years ago—reappearing unexpectedly at his door, turning his soul upside down.
Through a time-bending, Groundhog Day-style structure, Carrasco explores the different paths a life can take as Pablo relives one pivotal day. He’ll have the chance to settle unfinished business from both past and present, and finally close a chapter of his life… Or maybe not.
What begins as a light, Madrid-tinged comedy gradually transforms into a profound and heartfelt reflection on time, loss, and acceptance. Beautifully written and emotionally precise, Myocardium confirms Carrasco as a sensitive filmmaker with a rare gift for capturing the quiet ache—and joy—of being alive.
3) Un poeta (A Poet) (2024) / Simón Mesa Soto/ Colombia / 125 mins
Wednesday, October 14, 7pm
Pre-screening snacks starting at 6:30 PM in Landis Cinema lobby
Spanish with English subtitles
Middle-aged and erratic, Oscar is a failed writer who has given up on life. Unemployed and living with family, he wanders the streets of Medellín in a drunken stupor, lamenting the state of literature in his home country, where he has succumbed to the cliché of the tortured artist. However, the opportunity to mentor a young student offers a chance at redemption, if he doesn’t screw it up first.
In a performance marked by darkly comic pathos, first-time actor Ubeimar Rios stars in Simón Mesa Soto’s Un Certain Regard Jury Prize-winner A Poet, a raw and riotous farce about how good deeds are often met with the universe’s idea of cruel and unusually poetic punishment.
4) Querido trópico (Beloved Tropic) (2024) / Ana Endara/ Panamá / 108 mins
October 21, 7pm
Pre-screening snacks starting at 6:30 PM in Landis Cinema lobby
Spanish with English subtitles
Set against the humid, emerald backdrop of Panama City, this atmospheric drama explores the collision of two isolated worlds. Ana María, an undocumented Colombian immigrant harboring a desperate secret, finds work as a caregiver for Mercedes, a formidable woman whose identity is being slowly dismantled by dementia.
As Mercedes’ memory fades and Ana María’s lies grow heavier, an unexpected and profound bond takes root. Within the walls of a secluded garden, they navigate a fragile surrogate mother-daughter relationship, finding a shared language of survival and solace in a world that has forgotten them both.
Emotionally powerful yet socially relevant, the film invites conversation about identity, belonging, inequality, and the need for connection. It’s not just a film to watch — it’s one to feel, discuss, and remember.
5) Asco: Without Permission (2025)/ Travis Gutiérrez Senger / USA / 92 mins
Wednesday, October 28, 7pm
Pre-screening snacks starting at 6:30 PM in Landis Cinema lobby
Spanish and English with English subtitles
Executive produced by Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, filmmaker Travis Gutiérrez Senger‘s propulsive documentary chronicles the rise of underground Chicano art collective ASCO throughout their prolific punk uprising during the 1970s–80s.
ASCO: Without Permission challenges the limits of documentary conventions to tell the story of a revolutionary Chicano art group who turned 1970s Los Angeles into their defiant canvas. Merging activism with radical art-making, ASCO challenged the established order of Hollywood, museums, and media. Unrecognized by mainstream institutions during their time, they are now considered among the 20th century’s most significant artists.
Gutiérrez Senger mirrors their boundary-pushing spirit through a groundbreaking cinematic approach, weaving nonfiction and fiction together with a new generation of Latinx artists. The result is more than a profile—it’s a genre-defying reimagining of what’s possible in contemporary art and cinema, celebrating iconoclasts who were decades ahead of their time.