E-Mail This Article to a Friend Frontier justice The Boston Latino International Film Festival BY PETER KEOUGH
	The Boston Latino International Film Festival At the Harvard Film Archive, the Center for Latino Arts, and MIT’s Stata Center through October 23

In theory, the range of the Boston Latino International Film Festival includes all Latin language–speaking countries — in short, the world. In fact, though, this year’s selections focus on a narrow strip of territory. As suggested by the titles of many of the films, the frontier between the United States and Latin America, between haves and have-nots, between oppressor and the oppressed, often provides the setting.

Such is the case in two of the festival’s features, though their execution falls short of their intentions. Local filmmaker Roberto Carminati’s Brazilian-made A frontiera/The Border (2005; screens October 22 at 7 pm at MIT) follows the fate of a once successful Rio businessman reduced to illegally crossing into the United States to improve his fortunes. Although the character’s middle-class background dispels the usual stereotypes about illegals, the film’s reliance on melodrama falls back on cinema clichés.

Youssef Delara’s ESL: English as a Second Language (2005; screens October 22 at 9 pm at MIT) also offers characters who challenge audience preconceptions. Bolivar is a young Mexican who crosses over in search of money to support his wife and unborn child. Lola is the spoiled daughter of Mexican immigrants who have achieved the American Dream. They collide, literally, when a drunken Lola runs into the car transporting Bolivar. Later they meet up at the ESL class Lola teaches, and again at the male strip club where hunky Bolivar is making good money. This could have been a comedy in the spirit of Pedro Almodóvar; instead, it’s a morality play tinged with homophobia and misogyny.

More successful are the documentaries. Viewers will get a second chance to see Jeremy Levine’s funny and dismaying look at the vigilantes "guarding" our nation’s borders, Walking the Line (2005; screens October 16 at 9:50 pm at the HFA). It was one of the best films at the recent New England Film & Video Festival.

Covering the same subject from another perspective is Natalia Almada’s documentary Al otro lado/To the Other Side (2005; screens October 14 at 7 pm at the HFA), an interweaving of disparate characters gravitating north from Mexico. They include a wannabe singer looking to cross the border, impoverished fishermen turning their boats over to the drug trade, well-to-do Latinas getting back to their musical roots at an LA nightclub, and the members of the band Los Tigres del Norte. Like the corrido music rippling on the soundtrack, Almada composes these tales into a sensuous and troubling portrait of North and South.

Another filmmaker piecing together disparate characters is Mexican director Alejandro Lozano in his riotous and ruthless Matando Cabos/Killing Cabos (2004; screens October 23 at 7:10 pm at MIT). They include two feckless yuppies; an ex-wrestler named Mascarita and his sidekick, Tony the Cannibal; a psychopathic neighbor with a parrot and two Uzis; a brutal businessman; and many others. Lozano is as ingenious and cold-blooded as the Coen brothers in manipulating these poor schmucks, to their dismay and our amusement. Can’t say there’s much of a message here, but sometimes it’s enough just to have fun.