At the Frankfurt Book Fair we also meet Pilar Mendoza, Director of the Días de Cine – Lateinamerikanisches Filmfest held in Frankfurt Main (3 - 5 November 2017).

In conversation, she tells us about the beginnings of the festival, which started as Filmtage, according to the German designation of days dedicated to a selection of films. Since Días de Cine was established as a festival in 2013, it has invited film directors from all over Latin America.

The topics of a whole continent are abundant and the amount of film productions per year is enormous, specially among the growing number of independent film-makers; a selection must be made and priorities set. The selection of films at the Días de Cine reflects various emphases and since 2015, in cooperation with the Goethe University in Frankfurt, topics are discussed in a colloquium also in an academic context with the invited film directors.

In the colloquium on 3 November 2017, under the moderation of Dr. Marta Muñoz-Aunión and Dr. Bruno López Petzoldt, the directors Juan Sebastián Mesa (Los nadie, Colombia), Joel Calero (La última tarde, Peru) Jurgen Ureña (Abrázame como antes, Costa Rica) speak on forms of family coexistence in an urban environment and coping with the political past within the family.

Joel Calero La última tarde tries a new approach to deal with the Peruvian armed conflict of the 1980s. The aftermath of this war, mainly between the Peruvian Communist Party –also known as Shining Path – and the Peruvian Armed Forces, is condensed in a single afternoon and the conflict of a couple that comes together to settle their divorce. This metaphor, to describe a divided nation in an intimate conflict between a mature couple, though this approach of establishing a dialogue between a couple about specific Peruvian conflicts had been tried by Marianne Eydé in Coca mama (2004), has not been used to the extend Calero does in Peruvian cinema before.

Jurgen Ureña's Abrázame como antes is his second feature-length film and deals with the Costa Rican transgender community, exposed in the way of a gentle und meditative docudrama about friendship among transsexual prostitutes and mother hood in unusual circumstances.

Juan Sebastián Mesa opens the Latin American Film Festival Días de Cine presenting his feature film Los nadie. His film has won the Audience Award Circolo del Cinema di Verona at the Critics' Week of the Venice Film Festival. The title is inspired by a text by Eduardo Galeano and the film is a piece audiovisual energy, starring natural actors with a rebellious enough aura to immerse the viewer in a filmic pogo.

Three directors with apparently different approaches are ready to discuss with the audience about the topic set for the round table “Other Narratives: Challenges of contemporary Latin American Film”.