San Antonio, TX- The nation’s original and longest-running Latino film festival returns in the summer of 2023 with the 44th edition of CineFestival San Antonio. Presented by the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, San Antonio’s annual celebration of independent Latino cinema will take place July 12-16, 2023, at the historic Guadalupe Theater in San Antonio’s Westside.  

The 44th CineFestival will focus on Chicano, Latinx and Native American cinema, with an emphasis on Texas related films. The festival will be accepting films finalized after January of 2021. Depending on public health guidelines issued for the dates of the festival, the event will be held as a mix of virtual and live events, or exclusively in virtual format.  To read the full Call for Entries and to submit a film, visit: https://filmfreeway.com/44CineFestivalSanAntonio  

CineFestival San Antonio traditionally hosts screenings, Q&A sessions and panels at the historic Guadalupe Theater. Workshops, receptions, and after parties are held at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center campus and other community partner venues. Free community events include Family Day presenting a family friendly screening, a Youth Program showcasing work made by filmmakers 18 years old or younger, and a matinee Senior Cinema screening for the area’s elderly film lovers.  

“CineFestival is honored to be able to continue serving a growing community of local, regional, and national film and media artists of all levels of experience. The spirit of the festival is to foster the work of San Antonio and Texas based filmmakers as their voices mature, while keeping our finger in the pulse of what nationwide filmmakers are producing and offering international context.” 

“As we continue to provide local audiences to watch films that will otherwise be unavailable on the big screen, and to witness stories that are important and relevant to our communities, we also look forward to continue creating career defining opportunities to participating artists and festival alumni through workshops and master classes offered by established artists and members of the film industry,” said Eugenio del Bosque, CineFestival Programmer. 

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San Antonio, TX– The Tejano Conjunto Festival en San Antonio is the first and longest-running Conjunto Festival in the country and is internationally recognized as the most influential event for this beloved and popular Texas musical tradition. The highlight of the 41st Annual Tejano Conjunto Festival is the opportunity to hear the very best in Conjunto music from all across the many different styles played in Texas. The TCF will take place from May 17-21, 2023 at the historic Guadalupe Theater and Rosedale Park.

Each spring for the past four decades, the Tejano Conjunto Festival en San Antonio has encompassed robust and influential live performances of the founders, popular performers, and heritage award winners of each genre, along with dances, workshops, Hall of Fame inductions, and other events. The festival draws an enthusiastic audience of 10,000 fans, dancers, and musicians from across Texas and the United States, as well as Mexico, Europe, and Asia. The crowd has grown massively over the years to include legions of fans who return each year to dance and celebrate conjunto culture. 

The festival has become a model for many other conjunto festivals, which have appeared since it started, and is credited with highlighting the singular music and culture of South Texas Tejanos. 

Each year the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center holds its Tejano Conjunto Festival en San Antonio 2023 Poster Contest.  The popular poster contest returns after a two-year hiatus and it will include larger prizes, with the top award for the contest winner of $2,000, and more opportunities for area artists and students. The top prize winner’s poster will be used for all festival marketing materials for the Tejano Conjunto Festival en San Antonio, scheduled for May 17-21, 2023. There are no entry fees for the poster contest.

The Tejano Conjunto Festival poster contest provides opportunities for students in middle school, high school, and college to compete for the top prize alongside open and professional categories.
 
The theme of the posters must be “Conjunto music” and include the words “Tejano Conjunto Festival en San Antonio 2023.” Entries are due no later than January 27, 2023 at 5 p.m. CST, and winners will be announced on February 13, 2023.

The contest winner overall and each category winner will be announced in a special session on May 19, 2023, at the Tejano Conjunto Festival at Rosedale Park, on San Antonio’s Westside, one of the birthplaces of Conjunto music.

The entry form for the Tejano Conjunto Festival en San Antonio is available for download on the Guadalupe web page at https://guadalupeculturalarts.org/tejano-conjunto-festival/.  More details about the line-up, tickets, and other information will be posted on the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center web page at https://guadalupeculturalarts.org/.

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Soy Malintzin is presented by the San Antonio Museum of Art and generously funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities Latin American Fund.

Tickets are $30, $25, $20 and can be purchased by calling 210-271-3151 or online at www.guadalupeculturalarts.org.

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The Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center has selected Chicano literary activist, writer, and professor Tony Diaz for their August Latino Bookstore Summer Series and the national book launch of his book “The Tip of the Pyramid”. The book draws upon his over twenty years of work in the rich context of Chicano and Latino literary communities, reflecting on this effort and his life in activism, teaching, and media..

The genesis of the book in 2010 when Arizona lawmakers banned Mexican-American studies in their schools. Diaz co-organized the Librotraficante Caravan, an effort to confront the attempted erasure of Mexican American history and culture from Arizona classrooms.

“The Tip of the Pyramid” is Diaz’s second book. He previously authored the novel “The Aztec Love God” a coming-of-age tale about Tiofilio Duarte, a Mexican American high school student who dreams of becoming a stand-up comedian. 

Diaz will be joined by some of the writers, activists, and leaders who are mentioned in the book, which chronicles the work of The Librotraficantes, Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say, and is a call for “Our Community to understand its power and to unite.”

Diaz earned his master of fine arts degree from the University of Houston Creative Writing Program. He is a cultural accelerator and the literary curator of the Latino Bookstore at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center.

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By Roberto Leal

 On Friday, October 1 at 6:30 PM, the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center will launch the opening of the Latino Bookstore with a ribbon-cutting ceremony (1:00 PM) and author signings (6:30 PM) The bookstore and gift shop will be located in the Historic Progresso Pharmacy on 1300 Guadalupe St., San Antonio, Texas.

 The Ribbon-Cutting will be live-streamed on the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center  Facebook Page 

The book desert on the West Side of San Antonio and the lack of representation of Latino books in existing bookstores across the state and the country will at long last have a literary oasis in West San Antonio for residents to refresh their minds, hearts and soulds.

 The bookstore  will feature curated titles by Texas Latino authors. Fall and Winter programming will focus on Day of The Dead and Navidad/Holiday traditions and 2022 will kick off with the bookstore’s monthly author series. 

 “So many writers, visual artists, musicians, and filmmakers, have a long history with the Guadalupe.,” says Cristina Balli, the Guadalupe Cultural arts Center Executive Director, “We want to celebrate that history and make it accessible to tourists, students, and families.” 

For more information: https://guadalupeculturalarts.org/

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