Alejandro Gonzalez Padilla, director of “I Love Miami,” speaks before a screening. (Nick McCarthy)
In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, the SMU College Hispanic American Students invited students and faculty to a free screening of “I Love Miami,” Wednesday evening. The film is a satire in which Fidel Castro washes up on the coast of Miami where he lives among Cuban-Americans in the “other” Cuba.
“The Hispanic population has contributed a lot to the American culture,” said Joe Carreon, president of CHAS. “We feel it’s important to honor that and share that with the SMU community.”
The film’s director, Alejandro Gonzalez Padilla, who immigrated to Miami from Mexico 10 years ago said, “I was really touched by the Cuban immigration to the U.S. over the last 50 years, and I’ve always wanted to do a movie about rafters. I decided it may as well be Fidel Castro.”
The movie is dedicated to the 250,000 rafters, or “balseros” in Spanish, who have lost their lives crossing the strait of Florida to reach the coast of Miami.
“Basically what the movie is about is having the architect of a social movement go through what the people go through,” said Padilla, who compared Castro’s role in the movie to that of a king suddenly becoming one of the peasants in the kingdom.
The director welcomed the crowd to the screening of the movie, and asks, “How many people don’t speak Spanish?” About 15 people raised their hands. “The movie is about 40 percent English and 60 percent Spanish. That’s the way we speak it in Miami.”
The comment was met with a round of laughter and the movie began.
The “what if” concept and the satirical nature got many laughs from the crowd.
“It was good that they brought the humor part in because of the serious subject,” said Prateek Yadav, who also appreciated the inclusion of English subtitles, as he does not speak Spanish.
Behind the humor there was a message.
“It definitely gave me something to think about – how complex the situation is, ” said Anjulie Patel, a senior at SMU. “Being in Dallas we don’t think about what’s going on so close to us [in Miami].
The viewing in the Meadows School of the Arts was held in conjunction with its screening at the ninth annual Vistas Latino Film Festival at the Angelika Film Center in Mockingbird Station. The film will show at noon Saturday.
Although there was no disclaimer or warning in the e-mails sent out about the movie screening, “I Love Miami” had explicit language throughout and a sex scene.
For more information about the movie, visit the Web site at www.ilovemiamimovie.com.
