Hispanic Heritage Month Film Festival

We are thrilled to announce the 2026 Hispanic Heritage Month Film Festival at Towson University.  Syncopated Heartbeats: from the Real to the Reel.

It is proudly organized, and presented by the Department of Languages, Literatures & Cultures at Towson University. This event is made possible by the generous sponsorship of PRAGDA, the College of Liberal Arts, the Center for Student Diversity and the Department of Languages, Literatures & Cultures.

The film selection for the 2026 Hispanic Heritage Month film festival offers a kaleidoscopic view of the diverse, rich and contradictory reality that we attempt to reduce to a simple denominator: Latino or Latin-American. There is not a common theme that threads together all these films, yet they all share a special sensitivity that stems from a struggle that has lasted centuries, informed by an awareness of the richness and limitations of a region and its peoples. Like the art collective Asco that turned exclusion into spectacle, these films exude an unwavering resistance that manages to escape the narrow limits of discourse and celebrates life as it mourns its losses. It’s a rhythm that syncopates life and death and informs its art and cultural expressions. Born out of the violent and forced mestizaje, this beat will shake your heart, like Salsa will make you dance. 

The three fictional films, Zafari (Venezuela), No nos moverán (Mexico), and A Poet (Colombia), turn a sociological lense on three very different reckonings with collapse: ecological and economic breakdown, historical trauma and impossible justice, and the class politics of who gets to call themselves and artist. The two documentaries, ASCO's guerrilla art-making, and salsa's Afro-Caribbean roots crossing borders, offer a critical perspective that situates our struggles and the creative forces that are unleashed. In its seemingly chaotic variety, the selection in itself fosters a productive dialogue that will allow us to discover new ways of thinking and feeling the region. 

The selection brings together films with strong international recognition. Zafari premiered at the San Sebastián Film Festival, from the team behind the Golden Shell–winning Pelo Malo. No nos moverán won four Ariel Awards, including Best First Feature, and was Mexico's official Oscar submission. A Poet won the Jury Prize in Un Certain Regard at Cannes and was Colombia's official Oscar submission. ASCO: Without Permission, executive produced by Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, premiered at SXSW 2025. La Salsa Vive also premiered at SXSW and won Best Documentary at the Macondo Awards.

Significance to humanities and arts programs at Towson University

The programming serves multiple departments and disciplines: Latin American Studies, Sociology, History, Political Science, Cinema and Media Studies, Music, Art, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Africana Studies, among others. It offers meaningful entry points for courses addressing migration, race, cultural identity, political violence, and Afro-diasporic traditions.

Film Dates and Descriptions

Zafari

Dir. Mariana Rondón (Venezuela, 2024)
Friday, september 18 (5:30 p.m.)
LA1201

In a decaying high-rise overlooking a depopulated urban zoo, a middle-class family watches a hippopotamus arrive as their world collapses around them. As food, water, and electricity vanish, survival erodes every certainty they once held. Rondón blends social realism with thriller and allegory to craft a claustrophobic portrait of inequality and displacement in contemporary Latin America. Spanish with English subtitles. (100 min).  Followed by Q&A with director Mariana Rondón.

No nos moverán / We Shall Not Be Moved

Dir. Pierre Saint Martin Castellanos (Mexico, 2024)
Saturday, september 19 (1:30 p.m.)
LA1201

Socorro, an aging lawyer, has spent decades trying to identify the soldiers who killed her brother during the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre. When a missing clue finally surfaces, she sets in motion an absurd revenge plan that risks everything she has. Shot in striking black and white, the film weaves dark comedy, fable, and historical trauma into a meditation on justice, grief, and the impossibility of closure. Spanish with English subtitles. (94 min).

ASCO: Without Permission

Dir. Travis Gutiérrez Senger (USA, 2025)
Friday, September 25 (5:30 p.m.)
LA1201

Executive produced by Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, this genre-defying documentary chronicles the Chicano art collective ASCO, who turned 1970s Los Angeles into a canvas for radical, punk-spirited resistance against Hollywood, museums, and mainstream media. Ignored by institutions in their time, they are now recognized among the most significant artists of the twentieth century. English and Spanish with English subtitles. (92 min).

A Poet

Dir. Simón Mesa Soto (Colombia/Germany/Sweden, 2025)
Friday, october 2 (5:30 p.m.)
LA1201

Oscar, a washed-up poet drowning in the clichés of the tortured artist, drifts through Medellín unemployed and estranged from his own ambitions. When a gifted young student asks him to be her mentor, he glimpses a shot at redemption — one he seems determined to sabotage. Winner of the Jury Prize in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, this is a razor-sharp, darkly comic reckoning with class, ego, and who gets to call themselves an artist. Spanish with English subtitles. (125 min).

La Salsa Vive

Dir. Juan Carvajal (Colombia/USA, 2025)
Thursday, october 8 (6:30 p.m.)
UU0324

From its Afro-Cuban roots in 1960s New York to the dance floors of Cali, Colombia, this documentary traces salsa as a living, border-crossing cultural force. Featuring Rubén Blades, Henry Fiol, and Willie Rosario alongside dancers, collectors, and young enthusiasts, the film is a joyful exploration of how a genre born from migration and mestizaje continues to build community across generations. Spanish with English subtitles. (101 min).

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Acknowledgments

This event is possible thanks to the generous and kind support of:

• College of Liberal Arts
• Department of Languages, Literatures and Culture
• Center for Student Diversity
• Pragda
• Spain Arts and Cultures